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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



NATURE AND METHOD 



OF 



REVELATION 



BY 



GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D., LL.D. 

TITUS STKEET PROFESSOK OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN YALE UNIVERSITY 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1890 






Copyright, 1890 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 



1 . 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge 



y 







> 
5 



TO MY PUPILS 



PAST AND PRESENT 



THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



INTRODUCTION. 



The first part of this volume is composed of a 
series of Articles which were written at the request 
of the editor of " The Century Magazine," and have 
lately been published in that periodical. They have 
now been carefully revised and somewhat enlarged. 
The additions do not cover a great deal of space, but 
they will contribute, as I hope, to the better elucida- 
tion of the subject. The concluding portion of the 
volume comprises a number of Essays on important 
topics in New Testament criticism which are briefly 
touched upon in the preceding chapters. 

There is no apparent diminution of interest in the 
study of the Bible. Never to so great a degree as at 
present has it been the object of thorough scrutiny. 
The interest in biblical study, as distinguished from 
the mere reading of the Bible for a purely practical 
end, has spread widely, and is by no means confined 
to the class whose calling it is to interpret its con- 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

tents. Under these circumstances it is more than 
ever important that the Bible should be looked at 
from the right point of view. In the course of my 
own studies and reflections, the perception of the 
relation of the Scriptures to the historical process 
of Divine Revelation, the end and aim of which was 
the full introduction of the kingdom of God through 
him who, although he was " meek and lowly in 
heart," did not hesitate to style himself " the Light 
of the World," — the perception, I say, of this re- 
lation has become in my mind constantly more dis- 
tinct and vivid. In this ground-work of historical 
reality, this gradual entering of God with a trans- 
forming energy into the course of human history, I 
find a solvent for numerous difficulties of Scripture 
and a help in its interpretation. These are the 
points which I have tried, with such measure of light 
as I possess, to illustrate in the following pages. 

It is now several centuries since the Bible began 
to be examined critically, with an earnestness not 
before applied to the study, by methods more in 
accord with the canons of true science, and in con- 
nection with a marvellous progress of human knowl- 
edge in all branches of research. It would be 
strange indeed if large gains should not have been 
made through so great and long-continued exertions, 
in which so many scholars belonging to different 



INTRODUCTION. vn 

nations have been engaged. Opinions respecting the 
character of the Scriptures could not remain abso- 
lutely unchanged. The Scriptures remain, and must 
continue to be, the Christian's guide in matters of 
faith and duty, the normative exposition of Chris- 
tian doctrine. When they are taken collectively, in 
their entire compass, the New Testament in con- 
nection with the Old, — and only then is their suf- 
ficiency affirmed in the Protestant creed, — there 
is seen to inhere in this body of writings a self- 
completing, and in that way and to that extent a 
self-rectifying, quality. Not all the specific opinions, 
however, that were held in former times under the 
general formula stated above, can be retained now 
by candid students of the Holy Scriptures. We are 
not living in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
but in the last decades of the nineteenth. All the 
ascertained results of this fruitful period of biblical 
investigation must be frankly recognized. In the 
end Christian Evidences will be seen to be the 
stronger by this allegiance to truth and loyalty to 
conscience. In these days no real service is done 
to the Christian cause by stubbornly adhering to 
dogmatic prepossessions which have been proved to 
be untenable, — still less by unseemly denunciation 
of Christian believers who have been led by con- 
scientious inquiry to abandon them. It is wise for 



vin INTRODUCTION". 

those who are no longer young to remember an early 
resolution of Jonathan Edwards. " I observe," says 
Edwards in his Diary, " that old men seldom have 
any advantage of new discoveries, because they are 
beside the way of thinking to which they have been 
so long used. Resolved, if ever I live to [advanced] 
years, that I will be impartial to hear the reasons of 
all pretended discoveries, and receive them, if rational, 
how long soever I have been used to another way of 
thinking." In biblical science as in natural science, 
incidental to all this activity in investigation there 
are no doubt many unverified speculations. This does 
not imply that there are no sure gains, no healthful 
progress. The lesson to be drawn is that new opin- 
ions are to be sifted, and the wheat separated from 
the chaff. There is no better motto for the stu- 
dent than the words of the Apostle Paul : " Prove all 
tilings ; hold fast that which is good." 

Five and twenty years have passed since, in my 
work entitled " Essays on the Supernatural Origin 
of Christianity," I reviewed elaborately the critical 
and historical theories of Baur and his school rela- 
tive to the origin of Christianity and the New Testa- 
ment writings, and the rise of the Catholic Church 
of the second century. It was then confidently pro- 
claimed by many that by this school the last word 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

of science on these momentous questions had been 
spoken. Now in the new school of criticism in Ger- 
many the fundamental tenets of the Tiibingen critics 
are pretty generally forsaken. Professor Huxley was 
apparently not aware of this fact when he referred 
lately to Baur, Volkmar, Zeller, and others with them, 
as authoritative expositors of critical science. It 
simply shows that even a man of so clear and pene- 
trating intelligence as Professor Huxley cannot safely 
intermit his reading of German divinity. In the land 
where his authors dwelt, the wind changes too often. 
In this time of ferment, when the multiform tongues 
of the Press are everywhere heard, intellectual changes 
are rapid everywhere, but nowhere, probably, so rapid 
as among our Teutonic cousins over the Sea. The 
extent to which the basal propositions of the Tubingen 
school have already become obsolete, is indicated in 
the following words from an article by Professor 
Harnack : — 

" The possible picture it sketched was not the real, and 
the key with which it attempted to solve all problems did 
not suffice for the most simple. . . . They [the Tubingen 
views] have indeed been compelled to undergo very large 
modifications. But as regards the development of the 
Church in the second century, it may safely be said that 
the hypotheses of the Tubingen school have proved them- 
selves everywhere inadequate, very erroneous, and are 
to-day held by only a very few scholars." 



35 INTRODUCTIOX. 

There are individuals, to be sure, who show a disposi- 
tion to fall back on some of the peculiar positions of 
the Tubingen school concerning the New Testament 
narratives. This appears to be the case with Holtz- 
mann in his Introduction to the New Testament and 
in his recent Commentary. But generally speaking, 
while Baur's services in awakening thought, and the 
value of his contributions to learning, are highly ap- 
preciated, as they ought to be, the leading features 
of his system are no longer accepted. It seems to be 
our lot to hear in English the echoes of the conflicts 
in Germany of a generation ago. Mr. T. H. Green 
brings back Hegelism with him to Oxford, and gives 
himself up to the fascination of Baur's historical 
theories. An outcome of the Hegelian theology thus 
derived is " Robert Elsmere," a pleasing love-story, 
steeped in an infusion of Baur and Strauss, but treated 
by friend and foe as if it contained some new dis- 
covery threatening the foundations of the Christian 
religion. The new criticism in Germany, however, 
notwithstanding its comparative sobriety, brings for- 
ward, by way of substitute for the Tubingen theories, 
views respecting the evangelical history and the au- 
thorship of the New Testament writings — for exam- 
ple, the Fourth Gospel — which are open to serious 
objections. To some of these hypotheses attention is 
given in several of the closing Essays of this volume. 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

The assailant of Christianity in the eighteenth cen- 
tury was Deism ; the assailant, open or latent, of 
Christianity in the nineteenth century is Pantheism. 
Deism conceived of God as apart from the world ; it 
was taken up with the thought of his transcendence. 
Now the pendulum has swung to the opposite ex- 
treme. Pantheism is taken up with the immanence 
of God. Each lays hold of a half-truth. The two 
half-truths unite in Christian theism, which does not 
ignore the indwelling of God and his all-present 
energy, but at the same time recognizes his free, con- 
scious personality. In him we live and move : he is 
a Father, and hears the prayers of his children. He 
is neither to be separated from the world nor con- 
founded with it. The influence of the Pantheistic 
systems that followed Kant is not yet spent. One 
may liken them in their seductive splendor to the 
structure raised by the fallen angels, where — 

" From the arched roof, 
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row 
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed 
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light 
As from a sky." 

Outside of its philosophical statement in the German 
idealists after Kant, and in disciples of Spinoza, Pan- 
theism gets a lodgment in certain empirical systems 
where we might not expect to find it. Spencer's 



Xil INTRODUCTION. 

philosophy has been aptly characterized by Mansel 
as an attempt to engraft Pantheism upon Positivism. 
The ;i Unknowable " has no function different from 
that of a natural force. It is difficult to believe that 
the proposal to found religion on such a conception 
of God can be seriously meant. 

In literature we are reminded of the prevalence of 
a Pantheistic drift of thought and feeling by the recol- 
lection of Matthew Arnold's resolution of God into 
"a stream of tendency" on the side of righteousness, 
or of lines of his like the following, from the poem 
on Heine's Grave : — 

" What are we all but a mood, 
A single mood, of the life 
Of the Being in whom we exist, 
Who alone is all things in one ? " 

A like mode of thought pervades the writings of 
Emerson, although in him Pantheism is not har- 
dened into a consistent creed ; for Emerson to the 
end clung to the belief in personal immortality, and 
he pronounced the acceptance of this belief the " test 
of a man's sanity." The Deism of the former day 
was vanquished. It has no standing in the courts of 
science. No better lot, it is safe to predict, awaits 
the Pantheism of the present day. It cannot endure 
the contact of searching philosophical tests. It is 
built on assumptions, — definitions converted into 






INTRODUCTION. xm 

realities, like Spinoza's idea of u substance," or ficti- 
tious notions of " the infinite " which have no re- 
ality outside of the philosopher's brain. The only 
religion that is possible under a Pantheistic system 
is a vague, unsubstantial, unpractical sentiment, 
prayerless, and with no outlook of hope for the soul 
beyond the boundary of this fleeting life. To try to 
collect " the data of ethics " when there is no recog- 
nition of man as a personal agent capable of freely 
originating the conduct and the states of will for 
which he is morally responsible, is labor lost. The 
reality and profound significance of personality in 
God and in man, is a truth which is alike essential 
in all sound philosophy and in all earnest views of 
human life and duty. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Revelation and the Bible 1 

II. The Gradualness of Revelation 46 

III. The Differentiating of Christianity from 

Judaism 87 

IV. Revelation and Faith 127 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 

I. Remarks on the Authorship and Date of the 

Gospels 181 

II. Illustrations of the Character of the Gos- 
pel Histories 206 

III. The New Testament Writings on the Time 

of the Second Advent 221 

IV. The Theological Ideas of Matthew Arnold 243 

V. Professor Huxley's Comments on the Gospel 

Narratives 259 



INDEX 285 



THE 



NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 

In Chillingworth's famous work, " The Religion of 
Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation," occurs a sen- 
tence which passed into an adage : " The Bible, and 
the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants." In the 
sense in which the phrase was used by that acute logi- 
cian — a writer who had outgrown the narrowness of 
the school of his godfather Laud, in which he had re- 
ceived his early training — nothing can be more true. 
It is not from an infallible church that a Protestant 
derives his creed. With him the Scriptures are the 
rule of faith. They are the guide, at once authorita- 
tive and sufficient or exclusive, on all matters pertain- 
ing to religious belief and moral conduct. These are 
the customary formulas ; and the saying of Chilling- 
worth is a strong assertion of the Protestant position, 
which stands opposed, on the one hand, to that of the 
Church of Rome, and, on the other hand, to the 



2 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

rationalism which substitutes, in matters of religion. 
a subjective standard, be it one's own reasonings or 
feelings, for the Bible. Statements like this aphorism 
of Chillingworth have the value and attraction which 
belong to any terse enunciation of an important prin- 
ciple. They serve as watchwords in defensive warfare 
when adversaries approaching from opposite quarters 
are to be repelled. But even Rome, while asserting 
the authority of tradition, and claiming for the Church 
the place of an infallible interpreter, does not deny 
that the Bible is the record of the whole revealed faith. 
There is small danger of extravagance in praising the 
Bible, as every one will admit who appreciates what it 
contains, surveys the influence of this book in the past, 
and knows its indispensable service in awakening and 
supporting the life of religion in the souls of men. It 
is the simple truth, and no mere conventional compli- 
ment to the Scriptures, to say that Christian piety cut 
off from contact with their light-giving and life-giving 
power would wither away like plants robbed of the 
sunlight. 

But we need not examine the Bible long to become 
aware of problems and perplexities which the current 
axioms relative to the sufficiency and authority of 
Scripture do not clear up. On opening its covers the 
searcher for truth does not find between them a dog- 
matic and ethical treatise in which are methodically 
set down the articles which he is to believe and the 
things which he is to do. His Bible is not a Triden- 
tine Creed, nor an Augsburg Confession, nor a West- 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 3 

minster Catechism ; nor does it wear the aspect of a 
systematic account of " the whole duty of man." To 
be sure, doctrines and precepts are strewn here and 
there along its pages. But they must be picked out ; 
and when thus collected they do not always appear at 
first to agree with one another. The reader discovers 
that numerous commandments were issued at epochs 
far back in the past ; that they were addressed to a 
specific people or to particular individuals, and have 
no very perceptible application to present circum- 
stances or to himself. The Bible, from which he is 
expected to ascertain the purpose of life and how that 
purpose is to be fulfilled, turns out to be a voluminous 
collection of miscellaneous writings. They emanate 
from numerous authors, not all of whom are known 
even by name. These writings were all of them com- 
posed long ago and at different times — a portion of 
them at dates extremely remote. Here are histories, 
some of them traversing the same ground, and with 
striking differences in the point of view, to say the 
least, from which they were written ; poems, among 
them a copious collection of devotional lyrics, and one 
metrical drama which may be styled, in the better 
sense of the term, erotic ; likewise, a book filled with 
dirges, besides a considerable number of other com- 
pilations of discourses by ancient seers ; another drama 
dealing with the mystery connected with the allotment 
of evil by Divine Providence ; a collection of proverbs 
also ; letters of apostles to churches ; the whole end- 
ing with a book made up of visions. This multifarious 



4 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

literature, so far as the older grand division of it is 
concerned, the ancient Jews distributed into three 
departments, — the law, the prophets, and the hagio-> 
grapha, or " psalms ; " the last of the sections being 
a group that was brought together after the others, 
and is more diversified in its contents. In the later, 
or New Testament, division, several narratives of the 
ministry of Jesus and one narrative of the labors of 
the Apostles are followed by the Epistles and the 
Apocalypse. In neither of the two main divisions of 
the Bible are the component parts united even by the 
external tie derived from the order in which they were 
written. In cases not a few, the date of the books is 
unsettled. Differences of opinion on this point prevail 
among the scholars who are versed in such inquiries. 
With reference to certain books, — for example, the 
first six historical books of the Old Testament, — this 
diversity of opinion is very wide. No doubt the disa- 
greement on these questions of date is owing partly to 
the influence of a dogmatic bias in one direction or an- 
other, to subjective leanings which are void of scientific 
value, but rather stand in the way of an unprejudiced 
verdict. But when allowance is made for the refrac- 
tion due to innate or acquired prepossession, there is 
still left no small residue of uncertainty on the topics 
adverted to. Each of the various authors whose pro- 
ductions have been brought together in the Bible is 
plainly marked by personal traits which are reflected 
in both his thought and his style. Obvious limitations 
belonging to time and place, and to varying types of 



REVELATION" AND THE BIBLE. 6 

mind and culture, are stamped upon his pages. The 
peculiarity of the composite volume which we call 
" the Bible " — even this title, it is worth while to re- 
mark, was originally a plural — is strikingly felt when 
it is compared with the sacred books of other religions. 
The Yedas, the ancient Brahmanical scriptures, are 
mainly collections of hymns. The Koran is composed 
exclusively of communications alleged to have been 
made by an angel to one person, Mohammed, and all 
within an interval of a little more than twenty years. 
These oracles, flowing as they do from the single mind 
of the founder of Islam, are identical in their style 
and their general spirit. It is only a minor portion 
of the Koran that consists of narratives, and these are 
simply stories of the patriarchs, drawn from degener- 
ate Jewish and Christian sources, without any direct 
acquaintance on the part of Mohammed with the Old 
Testament records. Islam is pre-eminently the reli- 
gion of a book held to be supernatural in its origin, 
with nothing before it, or beneath it, or after it. 

Various as the books of the Bible are, however, in 
authorship, themes, and style, it is no exaggeration to 
say that one spirit animates them. He who approaches 
them in a merely critical, much more in a carping, 
temper, may miss the perception of it. A certain 
activity of conscience and moral sensibility may be 
requisite for the discernment and appreciation of it. 
This is not to fall back on a mere subjective im- 
pression, invalid except for the individual who experi- 
ences it. A deaf man or a man with no ear for music 



6 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

might as reasonably bring the same objection to one 
who is thrilled by an oratorio of Handel or a sym- 
phony of Beethoven. I am credibly informed that a 
noted American champion of disbelief not long ago, 
on his way home from a visit to Europe, made the 
remark with all sincerity that the admiration ex- 
pressed for the masterpieces of the great painters and 
sculptors is all a pure affectation, having no better 
ground than a contagious fashion, and that there is 
really nothing in these world-famed works of art to 
merit praise or elicit enthusiasm. But where percep- 
tions, be they aesthetic or moral and religious, are con- 
fined to no single breast; where they are awakened in 
a vast number of human beings, and are to a great 
degree independent of time and place and of peculiari- 
ties of race and education ; and where, moreover, they 
stand related to the noblest development of character 
as their concomitant or fruit, — they must be admitted 
to have a catholic worth. They become equivalent 
to an objective proof. It is vain to decry them as 
morbid fancies. They are not to be dismissed as the 
dreams of a mystic. They are the voice of human 
nature, — a recognition by man of realities, the denial 
of which on the part of individuals here or there sim- 
ply argues an abnormal constitution, or an "atrophy" 
of powers, an eccentric quality of some kind in the dis- 
senting sceptic. How shall we designate this peculiar 
characteristic of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, 
taken as a whole ? It may be denominated the spirit 
of holiness. It pervades the Bible as an atmosphere. 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 7 

It imparts to it, if one may so say, a supernal quality, 
— a quality not of earth. Here are not speculations 
uttered by sages about man's nature, duty, or des- 
tiny. Here are not precepts such as may be read 
in the wisest of the heathen, — for example, in Plato 
or Epictetus, or in the pensive chapters of the philo- 
sophic Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Where there is 
some likeness in the content, the tone is dissimilar. 
We feel the breath of God. To say that the ethical 
injunctions of the Bible are "morality touched with 
emotion," is too vague a description. It is morality 
inculcated as by a voice out of the unseen. Under- 
lying all is the relation, taken for granted more often 
than formally asserted, of man to God and eternity. 
Sanctions reaching out beyond this world of time and 
space give a solemn emphasis to the commandment. 
And the distinction here accorded to the Bible belongs 
to the Old Testament as well as to the New. Attempts 
have been made in ancient and modern times to sever 
the two parts of the book and to discard the earlier 
collection. Such was the proceeding of Marcion in 
the second century, and like views have been brought 
forward again and again in recent times. It is not 
the force of a settled tradition that has baffled every 
such enterprise. It is not even the recognition ac- 
corded to the Old Testament by the New which has 
been the prime obstacle in the way of endeavors of 
this nature. Rather is it the consciousness that the 
two parts of the Bible, differ as they may, are not at 
bottom incongruous and hostile, and a prevailing sense 



8 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of the fact that grand elements belong to them in 
common. The same spirit of holiness pervades them 
both, unites them, and lifts them out of the category 
of literature in general. The Bible not only interprets 
God, in his holiness and unfathomable love and pity, to 
man, it is the interpreter of man to himself. Coleridge 
tells us that, having striven to cast aside all preju- 
dice, he perused the books of the Old and the New 
Testaments, — "each book as a whole, and also as an 
integral part." " And need I say," he testifies, " that 
I have met everywhere more or less copious sources 
of truth and power and purifying impulses ; that I 
have found words for my most inmost thoughts, songs 
for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs, and plead- 
ings for my shame and feebleness ? In short, what- 
ever finds me, bears witness for itself that it has 
proceeded from a Holy Spirit, even from the same 
Spirit which of old entered into the prophets." This 
is not the experience of one mind only, but of a mul- 
titude out of many kindreds and tongues, age after 
age. 

It is true that in thus characterizing the Bible, dis- 
criminations are to be made. Not all its books are in 
this regard, in their power to sound the deep places 
of the soul, on a level. We find ourselves from the 
beginning in an elevated region, yet a region where 
there are hills and valleys. It is vain to pretend that, 
in the quality referred to, all parts of the Bible are 
on the same plane. Isaiah and the Psalms, John 
the Evangelist and the leading Epistles of Paul, are 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. « 

among the portions of the book that rise like lofty 
peaks in a mountain range. There are many pages 
within the compass of the canon which, while not 
without their significance and value as parts of the 
collection, lack comparatively the spiritual quality 
which I have attempted to point out. Most readers 
of Scripture seldom turn to them. There is another 
fact to be noticed here. There are parts of the Bible 
which it is hard to understand. Wholesale assertions 
about the perspicuity of Scripture have to be qualified. 
The learning of the most erudite scholars and the sa- 
gacity of the most expert critics fail to decipher the 
meaning of a not inconsiderable number of passages 
in the sacred volume. Protestants have always been 
obliged to encounter the Roman Catholic objection to 
the popular use of the Scriptures, that they cannot 
be understood by the generality of readers. The only 
way of meeting the objection is that adopted by Chil- 
lingworth; namely, to insist that all essential truth — 
truth essential to salvation and the conduct of life 

— is easily discernible on their pages. In this answer 
it is tacitly conceded that there is left a pretty broad 
margin which is — to the common man, to say the least 

— obscure. Even one of the canonical writers pro- 
nounces some things in the Epistles of Paul abstruse 
(2 Peter iii. 16). Why is this so ? it might be asked ; 
why all these dark places in Scripture, if it was writ- 
ten for the direct purpose of serving as an authori- 
tative text-book in religion ? When one considers 
the difficulties of the Bible, not in any captious spirit, 



10 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

as if to hunt up materials for an attack, but fairly and 
dispassionately ; when one looks at the difficulties 
which obtrude themselves upon the attention of those 
who are at all familiar with modern discoveries in nat- 
ural and physical science, and with modern studies in 
history and ethnology ; still more, when one takes 
into view moral difficulties in certain parts of biblical 
doctrine, especially in portions of the Old Testament, 
— one may be pardoned for inquiring, Was this body 
of writings, in its primary intention, designed to be 
a manual of religious and ethical instruction ? We 
may concede joyfully a high providential purpose in 
connection with the composition of the books which 
it contains, with their preservation, — although it 
must be remembered that they themselves allude to 
lost books which were regarded evidently as of equal 
authority with those in the canon, — and with their 
foreseen place and office in the Christian Church. 
But this is quite different from saying that they were 
originally composed with all this in view on the part 
of their authors. Especially does it leave out of 
sight a fact respecting the Scriptures which is in the 
highest degree important for the understanding and 
the right use of them, — a fact that furnishes a clew 
for the solution of the major part of the difficulties 
which have been adverted to. 

The thesis to be here propounded is this : It was 
not the Scriptures that made the religion, but the 
religion that made the Scriptures. And the religion 
was no abstract body of doctrine standing apart from 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 11 

the life of humanity. The Scriptures of both the Old 
and New Testaments are the offshoot of a great histo- 
rical movement, begun and carried forward to its con- 
summation by an agency supernatural and divine, yet 
a movement that is, notwithstanding, an integral part 
of the history of our race. The roots of the sacred 
literature must be sought in the historical events and 
transactions that gave rise to it. It were as strange 
an error to consider the records of the French Revo- 
lution, the memoirs of the leaders and minor actors, 
the discourses and expositions called forth, at the 
time and afterwards, by this series of momentous 
events, the songs and ballads of that stormy period, 
— to consider these multiform writings the Revolu- 
tion itself, and in a confused way to confound them 
with it, as it is to identify the books of the Bible with 
the religion out of which they sprang. To see the 
justice of this remark, it is only needful to glance at 
the origin of the New Testament Scriptures. John 
the Baptist wrote nothing. Jesus wrote nothing. He 
lived and taught, he gathered about him a band of 
disciples, he died and rose from the dead, and the 
Holy Spirit, the source of a new spiritual power and 
enlightenment, descended upon his disciples. Jesus 
laid the foundation for an organization of his fol- 
lowers. He created a society. It was not books that 
had been written or that were to be written that he 
styled " the light of the world " and the " salt of the 
earth." It was the men who believed in him and fol- 
lowed him. It was through them personally that the 



12 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

good which he brought to mankind was to be diffused 
abroad. By them the proclamation of God's forgive- 
ness and love, or the Gospel, was made. Some time 
elapsed before anything was written, before even 
the sayings and doings of Jesus were recorded. It 
was the living interest taken in those real occur- 
rences, — a curiosity on the part of Christians to know 
more of them, and, as we learn from the introduc- 
tion of Luke's first narrative, an increasing sense of 
the value of a correct knowledge of them, — that oc- 
casioned the composition of the four Gospels. The 
book of Acts owes its existence to a similar cause. 
As to the Epistles, of course the churches had to be 
founded before they could be addressed. It is desir- 
able to remember that Christianity was preached and 
believed in before anything was written about it. In 
an age of letters it was inevitable that the events 
which form the subject of the New Testament should 
very soon give birth to writings. We can understand 
why it was impossible that the American civil war 
should pass by without giving rise to the composition 
of letters by those actively engaged in it, and the pub- 
lication of books of history and reminiscence. There 
was a like impossibility in the case of the planting of 
Christianity by Christ and the Apostles. If the num- 
ber of those who desired to know the facts and to be 
taught the significance of them was at the outset 
small, it rapidly increased, and their interest in the 
subject was deep and absorbing. Of course the crea- 
tion of the New Testament literature was an act of 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 13 

Providence of essential consequence in its bearing on 
the subsequent propagation of the Christian faith. 
Our business is now with the second causes that led 
to it, and, in particular, with its relation to the his- 
torical facts out of which, as from a fruitful soil, it 
grew up. What has just been said of the New Testa- 
ment is applicable to the Old. Stretching along, as it 
were, underneath the heterogeneous books that make 
up the Old Testament, — heterogeneous as to their 
particular themes and their style, — is the groundwork 
of history, of the history of God's dealings with the 
nation of Israel in earlier and later times. This his- 
tory is related in specifically historical writings. But 
the historical situation determines the character and 
gives color to the form of the books which do not 
belong under this head. For example, the prophecies 
of Isaiah are a series of fervent discourses having 
reference to the circumstances of those to whom they 
were in the first instance directed. The prophets 
were preachers of righteousness, —preachers to their 
own generation. Prediction was not a prime, but 
an incidental and subsidiary, function of their office. 
Psalms and Proverbs embody the devotional senti- 
ments and the practical philosophy of living men at 
definite epochs in the career of the Hebrew people. 
It need not be said that we do not forget the inspira- 
tion of the prophets and the quality of their utter- 
ances, which is dependent upon inspiration, although 
the fact of the divine call of the several prophets, in 
the exigencies in which they appeared, is part and 



14 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

parcel of the series of historical events. It is simply 
meant that, be the peculiarity of the Old Testament 
writings which is derived from supernatural influence 
what it may, the discourses of Isaiah and the Pro- 
verbs of the wise man or men who were the authors 
of them, have an historical basis not less real and 
substantial than is true of the sermons of Jonathan 
Edwards and the maxims of Franklin in " Poor 
Richard's Almanac." When the first martyr Stephen 
spoke for the Christian cause before the Jewish coun- 
cil, he spread before them an array of historical 
occurrences. He w^ent back to God's disclosure of 
himself to Abraham in the far-off time, and passed in 
review, one after another, leading personages and facts 
of the past down to the mission and death of the 
Righteous One. In the same spirit the Apostle Paul 
traces everything back" to a person, — to Abraham and 
to his personal convictions respecting God. He .was 
" the father of all them that believe," the founder of 
a people becoming more and more numerous, and 
finally bursting the confines of national kinship. 

At the same time the Apostle Paul understood the 
value of the Scriptures. It was the signal advantage 
of the Jews that to them had been committed " the 
oracles of God." A sacred deposit had been intrusted 
to them. The promises of God recorded in the an- 
cient Scriptures were in their hands. It is not only 
as inspired interpreters of the facts that prophets and 
apostles are the organs of revelation. They are in- 
spired to look forward and partly lift the curtain that 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 15 

veils the future. Thus they discharge an office in 
preparing the way for subsequent scenes and events 
in the drama of Providence as it gradually unfolds 
itself. 

The fundamental reality is not the Bible, it is the 
kingdom of God. This is not a notion. Rather is it 
a real historical fact, and the grandest of all facts. 
No other kingdom or commonwealth ever had a more 
substantial being. It is older than any other ; it has 
proved itself stronger and more enduring than any 
other ; if there is any good ground for the Christian's 
faith, it will embrace or overspread them all. What 
is this kingdom ? It is the society of believers in God, 
— the society of his loyal subjects and children. In 
its immature stage, under the old dispensation, it 
existed in the form of an organized political com- 
munity. Among the nations there lived one people 
which had true thoughts respecting God, into whose 
hearts he put true thoughts respecting himself. They 
became conscious — it was he who inspired them with 
the consciousness — of standing in an immediate, 
peculiar relation to him. That they were a " chosen 
people " was a conviction ineradicably planted within 
them. Has not this conviction of theirs been verified 
in the subsequent history of mankind ? They were 
made to feel that they were not thus distinguished 
for their own sake, or on account of any merit of 
their own, but were chosen to be witnesses for God 
to the rest of mankind. There was a divine purpose 
of redemption, in which the entire race was to have 



16 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

a share. In the divine intent, to recover mankind 
from evil, and to make the whole earth the abode 
of righteousness and peace, was the ultimate goal. 
The civil polity and the laws of the chosen people 
were to reflect the will of God as made known from 
time to time through holy and inspired men. The 
whole course of their lives was to be regulated by 
prescriptions issuing from the same divine source. 
After the monarchical form of government was estab- 
lished, revelation still remained the source of law. 
Side by side with the kings there stood the prophets 
to declare the divine will, to rebuke the iniquitous 
ruler, and, if need be, to exhort the people to dis- 
obedience. In the complex progress of the world 
towards the ideal of human perfection, other peoples, 
on the plane of nature, had their respective parts 
to fulfil. The one supreme concern of this Hebrew 
nation was, and was felt to be, religion. Their func- 
tion among the nations of the earth was consciously 
wrapped up in this one interest. As they well knew, 
other religions besides their own were national. All 
ancient religions were national. 

But other religions were on false foundations, and 
were doomed to pass away. When the political inde- 
pendence of the Israelites was lost, their civil polity 
shattered, the conquered people dragged off into idol- 
atrous lands, this consciousness of being possessed of 
the true religion, and of a grand and triumphant 
future awaiting them, not only survived but grew 
more confident. It not only outlived political ruin ; 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 17 

under overwhelming calamities it burned with a more 
intense fervor. More strange than all, there was a 
foresight of a great advance to be made in the in- 
trinsic character of this divinely given religion, as 
well as in the extent of the dominion to be gained 
by it. The basis of the religion was the covenant 
of God with the people. But the days were to come 
when there was to be " a new covenant with the house 
of Israel, and with the house of Judah." Religion 
was one day to become more spiritual ; obedience 
would then no longer be legal or constrained, but 
spontaneous ; the knowledge of God and his ways 
would be confined to no class, but would be diffused 
among all ; forgiveness would be full and free. Such 
is the remarkable prediction of the prophet Jeremiah. 
Centuries flowed on, the great hope was a hope de- 
ferred ; but the epoch thus foreseen at last arrived. 
The Person through whom was to be achieved this 
vast revolution and expansion of the kingdom, dimly 
discerned from afar in certain grand outlines, at 
length appeared. Jesus, the Christ, became the 
founder of a spiritual and universal society. Who- 
ever will look into the Gospels will see that it was 
in this character of the head of a kingdom that he 
appeared. It was of the kingdom of God that John, 
the forerunner, spoke, as near at hand. It was for 
professing to be a king, however the nature of that 
claim was misrepresented by his accusers, that Christ 
was put to death. The prophecy began to be realized 
when he commenced to teach and to attract to himself 

2 



18 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

disciples. The kingdom was there. This he taught 
when, in answer to the question when the kingdom 
was to begin to be, he said, " The kingdom of God 
cometh not with observation ; " " lo ! . . . the king- 
dom of God is within you," or in the midst of you. 
The kingdom was constituted by Jesus and the group 
of disciples who acknowledged him as Lord and Mas- 
ter, and who, like him, were devoted to the doing 
of the Father's will. This last was the criterion of 
membership in the kingdom, and of a title to its 
blessings. Those who were one with Jesus in this 
filial allegiance were hailed by him as brother and 
sister and mother. Yet the consummation of the 
kingdom lay in the future. Hence the kingdom, al- 
though a present reality, was a kingdom in the bud, 
and therefore a kingdom to come, — to come in a 
double sense, in its moral progress among mankind, 
and in mysterious final scenes of judgment and vic- 
tory. So that the prayer of all disciples was still 
to be, " Thy kingdom come," — a supplication that 
points both to the continuous progress and transform- 
ing influence of the Gospel in the world, and to the 
goal of that progress, the final epoch. Precisely 
how " the kingdom of Christ " or " the kingdom of 
heaven " should be defined is a point on which all 
are not agreed. It was declared by Jesus not to be 
a " kingdom of this world." Its origin was not 
earthly, but from above. It was not, like human 
sovereignties, to be maintained and spread by force. 
The end of the Founder's mission was to bear witness 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 19 

to the truth. The kingdom was to be made up of those 
who heard his voice, who believed and obeyed the 
witness which he gave. In the ancient era of the 
Church there was the Byzantine idea, which tended 
to regard the Christian state, with the Roman em- 
peror at its head, as the realization of the kingdom. 
In the West it was the Church in its visible organiza- 
tion under the Papacy that was identified with the 
kingdom of Christ. A broader view would bring 
within the circumference of the kingdom all the 
baptized, in whatever Christian fold. A still broader 
view is that which includes within its pale all souls 
who, accepting Christ as their Lord and Saviour, live 
to do the Father's will. 

No view of the divine kingdom is adequate which 
fails to see that the end of its establishment is the 
transformation of human society. The rescue of in- 
dividuals from sin and punishment is far from being 
the whole good to be achieved through the instrumen- 
tality of revealed religion. Its ethical relations are 
never to be ignored or undervalued. It is here on earth 
that the will of God is to be done. It is here that 
the desert is u to rejoice, and blossom as the rose." 
The aim of the divine kingdom was and is to renovate 
political and social life. " Judaism," a recent writer 
has well said, " was not a religion merely, but a polity, 
its aim being the establishment of righteousness in 
the relations of men within the commonwealth ; the 
political and moral laws and the national organization 
form its central point, its kings and judges being in 



20 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the fullest sense ministers of God." Nothing less was 
designed by the later, the Christian, dispensation, fol- 
lowing upon the earlier, than " the establishment and 
maintenance of true relations throughout the whole 
body of a united and organized humanity, under the 
influence of the Christian spirit of righteousness and 
love." As a means to this end the Church exists, 
— an organized community, consisting of a portion 
of human society in which the renewing power of the 
Gospel has been experienced. 

One might as well doubt whether the sun is in the 
sky as to question the reality of that new creation 
which gives its distinctive character to " the Chris- 
tian era." Out of Judaism there has come into be- 
ing a spiritual and universal society, however it may 
be more precisely defined, and whatever disputes may 
exist as to its boundaries. It may be added here that 
all organized bodies which hold the Christian faith, 
including the Church of Rome as well as Protestants, 
unite in pronouncing that the complete deposit of 
revealed truth was with Christ and t'he Apostles. 
The Church of Rome makes tradition an authorized 
channel for the transmission of this truth. But all 
agree that Christianity is the absolute religion. There 
is a progress in the understanding of it, from age to 
age. But the religion itself is not defective, and 
therefore is not perfectible. Christianity is not to be 
put in the same category with the ethnic religions, 
which contain an admixture of error, and are capable 
of being indefinitely improved. The religion of the 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 21 

Gospel is absolute. The allegiance of the follower of 
Christ is unqualified. " Ye call me Master and Lord : 
and ye say well ; for so I am." 

Keeping in view this historic kingdom, which stands 
forth as an objective reality, beginning in the distant 
past and carried forward to its perfected form by 
Jesus of Nazareth, we have to inquire what is the 
relation of the Holy Scriptures to it. The answer is 
that they are the documents that make us acquainted 
with the kingdom in its consecutive stages up to its 
completed form. In the Scriptures we are made ac- 
quainted with the facts and the meaning of the facts. 
And as in the case of all documentary materials 
viewed in contrast with literary products of later 
elaboration, we are brought face to face with the his- 
toric transactions and with the persons who took part 
in them. This is the peculiar character of the Scrip- 
tures, and is at once the secret of their transcendent 
value and the occasion of countless obscurities and 
difficulties. By no other means could we become pos- 
sessed of knowledge so immediate and so vivid. Yet 
they give occasion for the same sort of inquiries that 
always devolve, in historical investigation, on those 
who delve in the sources. 

Let us take an illustration from secular history. 
We will suppose that the later narratives, such as 
those of Bancroft and Palfrey, by which a New Eng- 
lander learns the origin and growth of the communi- 
ties to which he belongs, and their historic relations 
to other parts of America, had not been written, — the 



22 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

narratives, we mean, which are based on documentary 
materials, including under this head prior accounts 
whose authors stood nearer to the circumstances which 
they relate than the historians of to-day. We are 
shut up, we will imagine, to this mass of documentary 
materials. There is Bradford's pathetic story of the 
Pilgrims, of their flight from their English home to 
Holland, their voyage across the Atlantic, their set- 
tlement and their experiences at Plymouth. We have 
other writings also, — the " Compact of Government " 
drawn up in the cabin of the "Mayflower ;" the diary 
and the letters of John Winthrop, the Massachusetts 
governor ; the earlier and later codes of colonial law ; 
the " Bay Psalm Book ; " Cotton Mather's " Magna- 
lia ; " later still, the history of Hutchinson ; and 
along with other productions we have discourses of 
the most influential preachers in the successive gen- 
erations. As we approach the epoch of the Revolu- 
tion we have the letters and speeches of the patriotic 
leaders ; the records of the first congresses, local and 
general ; the Declaration of Independence ; contem- 
porary accounts of the war that followed ; the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and expositions of it by 
Madison and others who took part in framing it ; 
official papers of the first President and his Cabinet, 
etc. Imagine a comprehensive collection of these 
documents. It would consist of prose and poetry, of 
orations, disquisitions, letters, and so forth. Obviously 
there would be inconveniences, especially to an un- 
trained, unlearned student. There would be things 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 23 

hard to understand, obscure allusions, apparent and 
real discrepancies of more or less consequence. A 
consecutive history prepared by a modern student of 
sound, critical judgment would plainly have its advan- 
tages. But one superlative advantage it would fail to 
have. The reader would not, in anything like an 
equal degree, be brought into the atmosphere of the 
former days. He would not, in anything like an 
equal degree, come into living contact with the events 
and into direct personal intercourse with the partici- 
pants in them. His impressions, if in some particulars 
more exact and more systematic, would lack the color, 
would want the vividness, which are to be caught 
only from the documentary sources. The difference 
is like that between a treatise on geography, or even 
the descriptions of a traveller, and an actual journey 
through a country which we seek to know. Let one 
read either of the numerous lives of Jesus which have 
been written by learned scholars in recent times, even 
when imaginative power reinforces the erudition of 
the author, and then turn to the pages of the Evange- 
lists. He will feel at once the difference between 
second-hand and first-hand accounts ; between those 
who see through their own eyes and those who have 
to use the eyes of others. The modern scholars fur- 
nish us with collateral information of value, illustra- 
tive of the Gospels ; they collate the several narrators ; 
they apply the canons of historical criticism with more 
or less skill ; but where is that living, speaking por- 
trait of Jesus, of his walk and his talk, which the 



24 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

original historians, the Apostles and their compan- 
ions, give us ? It is the difference between the her- 
barium and the leaves and flowers in field or forest. 
In the herbarium the classification is better, but we 
miss the bright hues and the perfume of the blossoms. 
To the botanist the herbarium is important, and botany 
is a useful science in its place. But the rose-bush, or 
a grape-vine with the clusters of fruit hanging upon 
it, has a charm of its own which the botanist not 
more than the unlettered man would be willing to 
spare. 

The beginnings of old kingdoms and empires are 
commonly obscure. They start on their career in the 
twilight. It is not until the day has fairly dawned, 
until some progress has been made on the path of civ- 
ilization, that written records arise to be transmitted 
to later times. Even then contemporary writings are 
likely to be scanty aud fragmentary. Traditions 
exist and are handed down, but they are subject to 
the influences that affect the oral transmission of nar- 
rative matter from generation to generation. Thus 
when the past comes to be studied in an enlightened 
age, there is no escape from the necessity of historical 
criticism. The historical student, like other laborers, 
has to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. The 
facts of a remote time are to be reached only by ex- 
ploring in places where the light is dim. Great rivers 
may traverse empires, spreading fertility along their 
banks, but we have to hunt for their sources. If the 
circumstances of the rise of the kingdom of God 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 25 

should be found to accord with this analogy, there 
would be no cause for wonder. There would be no 
ground afforded for a naturalistic theory as to the 
origin of that kingdom, unless indeed it were mis- 
takenly imagined that the primary design of God was 
not to plant religion in the souls of men, to raise up a 
people, and to work out historically the redemption of 
mankind, but rather to produce a body of writings. 

In this day of critical research it is the early part 
of the Old Testament history respecting which debates 
and perplexities most frequently arise. These relate 
largely to the Pentateuch, and the traditional views 
relative to its authorship. It is interesting to observe, 
however, that scholars of high repute, in what is called 
the " advanced " school, who assign so great a part of 
the Pentateuchal legislation, as well as the accom- 
panying narrative matter, to a later than the Mosaic 
period, do not feel justified by their interpretations of 
the evidence in questioning the existence of Moses, or 
the grandeur of his work as a leader, lawgiver, and 
prophet. For example, Reuss, who claims to have 
been first in the field with the ideas which his pupil, 
Graf, independently developed, says : " Moses was for 
all times the lawgiver of Israel. . . . There may be a 
dispute as to what strictly belongs to him. But his 
spirit — in this proving itself to be a divine spirit — 
ruled the judgment of the centuries, and impressed on 
the national development its own stamp and direction. 
The continuers of his work, even the most gifted and 
energetic, and at the turning-points of history, did not 



26 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

find it needful to forget or to ignore his name, which a 
firm and thankful tradition connected with everything 
that was great and useful," etc. In addition to what 
he did in revealing a purer knowledge of God in the 
midst of the barbarism of the heathen, says Reuss, 
" there belongs to him without doubt the regulation 
and ordering of the ritual as it afterwards existed in 
Israel, at least in its outlines." A critic as little 
wedded to accepted views as Hermann Schultz finds 
it unreasonable to call in question the fact of the 
revelation of God to Moses at Mount Sinai. He styles 
Moses " the man who was properly the founder of the 
true religion, the effects of whose influence condi- 
tioned the entire religious development of Israel. . . . 
Moses is, with the exception of Jesus, the most impor- 
tant of the religious personages concerning whom 
really trustworthy information remains to us." So 
it continues true, even in the creed of the critics of 
every stripe, that " the law came by Moses " as well 
as " grace and truth by Jesus Christ." 

It is confessed on all hands that when we reach 
the writings of the prophets we stand on the firm- 
est historical ground. What the religion of Israel 
was in the eighth century b. c, the great age of 
prophecy, is clearly and vividly exhibited to us in 
these writings. Whatever the prophets may not pre- 
suppose, they certainly do imply a course of teach- 
ing and of revelation, extending far back of their 
day. Revelation is not magic, and the lofty plane 
on which the prophets are found to stand was not 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 27 

reached at a single bound. Not until after the sun 
has slowly climbed the sky does it shine down upon 
us in the blaze of noonday. Amos, the shepherd 
of Tekoa, uttered his prophecies early in the eighth 
century. It was to Israel that he spoke, the peo- 
ple whom the Lord had " brought up out of the land 
of Egypt," saying, " You only have I known of all 
the families of the earth." Nothing can surpass the 
eloquence in which the universal sovereignty of God 
is set forth. It is " he that formeth the mountains, 
and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what 
is his thought." It is " he that maketh the Pleiades 
and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death" — or 
the deep darkness — " into the morning, and maketh 
the day dark with night ; that calleth for the waters 
of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the 
earth ; . . . that bringeth sudden destruction upon 
the strong, so that destruction cometh upon the for- 
tress." In the prophets of that age the nations of 
the world, even the mighty Assyrian power that was 
trampling kingdoms under foot, and advancing seem- 
ingly to universal dominion, are in the hand of G-od 
and are managed for his purposes. " This is the pur- 
pose that is purposed upon the whole earth : and this 
is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. 
For the Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall 
disannul it ? and his hand is stretched out, and who 
shall turn it back ? " The Assyrian, the Lord ex- 
claims, is " the rod of mine anger. . . . Howbeit he 
meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so ; but 



28 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not 
a few." The religion which embodied so lofty con- 
ceptions of God, both of his power and moral attri- 
butes, and of his providential plan, was not born in a • 
day. The religion which had within itself vitality 
enough to survive the complete overthrow of national 
independence, and even to rise to more exalted heights 
of faith and devotion, must have had a. long history 
behind it. There must have been, as one has said, a 
tap-root extending far down in the earth. There is 
no rational way of dispensing with the creative and 
organizing influence of Moses in the Hebrew common- 
wealth and religion. But behind Moses, in the mist 
of a much more remote antiquity, stands the figure of 
Abraham, the progenitor of many nations. Against 
the extreme scepticism that would sweep off the stage 
of authentic history this heroic character, the appeal 
may be made to the judgment of a scholar like Dill- 
mann, whose unsurpassed learning and impartiality 
are acknowledged by all the critics. " The possibility 
at least," says Dillmann, " that out of the period from 
the twentj r -second to the twentieth century before 
Christ historical personages may live on in the recol- 
lection of after times cannot on general grounds be 
contested. We are not surprised when among the 
Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians written his- 
torical memorials from those centuries confront us. 
Why then should not the Israelites, when they appear, 
somewhere about the year 1500, upon the theatre of 
history, have preserved historical recollections out of 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 29 

that time ? " Then, after pointing out that the oldest 
Hebrew historians manifest a consciousness of the 
difference between those old times and the later with 
which they are conversant, Dillmann adds : " The 
main thing, however, is that the entire work of Moses 
admits of no historical explanation except on the sup- 
position of a preparatory, comparatively pure type of 
religion \_eine Vbrstvfe hoherer Religion], such as, 
according to Genesis, belonged to those Fathers ; and 
such a higher form of religion of necessity pre-sup- 
poses personal agents or standard-bearers. As states 
can be built up only through leading spirits or heroes, 
in like manner and much more are advances in matters 
of religion linked to persons rising above their fellows ; 
and the memory of them is wont to abide in the minds 
of those coming after who have gathered about their 
faith as a centre, and to hold on more persistently 
than even the recollection of political founder s. As 
the head of a purer belief in God in the midst of the 
darkening power of heathenism that had already come 
in ; as a man eminent for his sense of God and faith 
in him, who was accustomed to listen for the voice of 
God and to follow his guidance in all the exigencies 
and events of his life ; as one who advanced in the 
knowledge of the nature and will of God, and im- 
planted this higher knowledge in his household and 
among those about him, — thus do the ancestral 
legends in Genesis represent Abraham. His exis- 
tence there has in it so little that is incredible that 
rather are we obliged to assume it, unless we throw 



30 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

overboard, at the same time, as unhistorical the con- 
nection of Moses with the God of the Fathers." Dill- 
mann calls special attention to the credibility of the 
narrative, in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, of the 
arming by Abraham of his dependents for the rescue 
of Lot, taken captive by Chedorlaomer and his allied 
kings. It is a narrative which in various particulars 
is corroborated by the cuneiform inscriptions. The 
substance of the narrative seems to have been drawn 
by the Hebrew writers from written sources east of 
the Jordan. On the whole, then, until stronger evi- 
dence to the contrary shall be adduced than has yet 
been found, we are justified in believing that Abraham 
lived, and was an immigrant from Chaldasa, leaving 
his kindred that he might escape from the contagion 
of the incoming and spreading idolatry. These, be it 
remembered, are historical questions such as might 
present themselves in connection with the rise of 
Roman power or with the Saxon invasion of Eng- 
land. Even if they are variously answered, the re- 
ality of the kingdom of God, and the office it has 
fulfilled in the course of human history, remain as 
undeniable facts. 

Tn the prolegomena to the annals of Israel as an 
organized community, — becoming such by the leader- 
ship and legislation of Moses, — and prior to the story 
of the patriarchs, we find the opening chapters of Gen- 
esis, with their narratives : some of them double, in- 
dicative, many scholars judge, of distinct sources, — 
narratives of the creation and of the primal transgres- 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 31 

sion, of the flood, of the division and dispersion of 
mankind. In these narratives are mingled fragments 
of ballads, genealogies, etc., — all these materials being 
strung together on a chronological thread. Here we 
have the background of Hebrew history. The resem- 
blance of the contents of these chapters to the legends 
of kindred nations, especially the Assyrians and Baby- 
lonians, is too marked to be the result of accident ; 
yet at the same time the dissimilarity is equally 
striking. Both call for explanation, — the unlikeness 
not less than the likeness. There pervade the Gene- 
sis stories a pure theism and the ethical quality which 
are defining characteristics of the Old Testament reli- 
gion as a whole. They are thus in their inward spirit 
of a piece with Revelation, and even homogeneous with 
Revelation in the final or Christian stage of its ad- 
vancement. Without exaggeration it has been said 
of the first three chapters of Genesis that they con- 
tain more moral and religious truth than all other 
books taken together which have been written inde- 
pendently of the Bible. Profound thinkers have dis- 
cerned in the account of the temptation and fall a 
psychological depth which lends support to the belief 
that its kernel was a primeval tradition, however im- 
possible it is to draw the exact line between the literal 
facts and the accretion of symbol that has gathered 
about them. Whence were these ancient narratives 
in the introductory part of Genesis derived ? How 
and when did they originate ? That they were brought 
in at a late day in the development of the Hebrew 



32 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

religion, from Assyrian and Babylonian sources, is a 
theory fraught with improbabilities. It would imply 
that for an indefinitely long period the Hebrews were 
content to be destitute of any conceptions respecting 
the origin of things and the early life of mankind. 
It implies, moreover, that they were ready to borrow 
mythological tales from their heathen neighbors and 
oppressors. In the present state of knowledge no 
hypothesis is so probable as that when Abraham and 
his companions left their primitive home they brought 
with them the traditions and beliefs, as to the past, of 
the race to which they belonged. In that region these 
may not then have been disfigured to the same extent 
as afterwards by the admixture of mythological matter. 
In the light of the revelation of God made to Abraham 
and to his descendants, this stock of inherited narra- 
tive was purged of whatever dross of heathenism was 
intermingled with it. The primeval traditions and 
tales were so transformed as not to clash with the 
fundamental principles of revealed religion, and were 
thus left to serve as an adequate vehicle for convey- 
ing essentially right religious impressions, until the 
age should arrive when physical science and historical 
investigation should supply the knowledge which then, 
at the dawn of civilization, it would not have been pos- 
sible for men to comprehend, as it was not the office of 
Revelation to communicate. If the Hebrews were left, 
for example, to share in the belief of their ancestors 
that the world was made in a week's time, they were 
not worse off than Christians have been until within a 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 33 

century past. It is well to dispossess ourselves of the 
notion that the Divine Author of Revelation began 
with casting out of men's minds the whole stock of 
beliefs which were included in their inheritance. 
There was a world of knowledge about the way of 
creation and other mundane things which natural 
science and historical study in after times would 
unfold to view. And natural science and historical 
study are not alien and inimical to religion. They 
too are methods through which God in another way 
discloses truth to men. 

From the historical point of view the student — in 
fact, every one who desires to find out what really 
occurred in the past — craves contemporary evidence 
of a trustworthy nature. Those who were immedi- 
ately concerned in the events, and those who were 
in a position to be correctly informed in relation to 
them, are the competent witnesses. Tradition is of 
no value except so far as their testimony can be 
reasonably thought to be contained in it. The chief 
interest which the historical inquirer has in criticism 
applied to any portion of the Bible is from the bearing 
of it on this question ; Have we contemporary evidence 
or its fair equivalent ? As regards the life of Jesus 
and the planting of the Church, including both the 
facts and the teaching, there can be no reasonable 
doubt. The genuineness of the leading Epistles of 
Paul has not been questioned at the present day by 
the most learned sceptics, the starting-point of whose 
disbelief, be it observed, is commonly the assumed 



34 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

demands of speculative philosophy far more than real 
difficulties of an historical nature. But these Epistles 
imply on the part of the Apostles — the pupils, friends, 
and companions of Jesus — the testimony to the fact 
of his resurrection. It is in the highest degree im- 
probable that they could have believed it had they not 
been prepared, by their real or supposed previous ob- 
servation of exertions of miraculous power by Jesus, 
for giving credence to so astonishing a miracle. We 
are not left, however, to inference in respect to this 
point. The assertion is often thrown out that we have 
no good evidence of the existence of the Gospels prior 
to the second century. But the assertion is made, 
despite proofs that ought to satisfy every candid per- 
son. There is no reason to doubt, and there are the 
strongest reasons to conclude, that the first three Gos- 
pels were written within the limits of the generation 
contemporary with the events recorded, and were 
written by perfectly veracious persons who had the 
means of knowing what the facts were which they 
undertook to record. The effort to bring the Fourth 
Gospel down into the second century, and to ascribe 
its authorship to any other than to the Apostle John, 
encounters difficulties far more serious than those 
which it aims to avoid ; and the only plausible alter- 
native theory, where the Johannine authorship is 
given up, is that the book was composed by one of 
his disciples. 

We hear it said that in that age, the age of Jose- 
phus and of Tacitus, there was no appreciation of 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 35 

the nature and the value of testimony. Sweeping 
remarks of this nature respecting civilized commu- 
nities at an epoch several centuries after the death 
of Aristotle, may be left without refutation. The 
statement is sometimes so qualified as to make it 
applicable only to the Gospel writers. This would 
imply that Jesus Christ selected twelve persons to 
bear him company, and to relate to others what they 
had heard and seen, who were destitute of the essen- 
tial qualifications of witnesses, and that no discipline 
in sobriety of mind and truthfulness resulted from 
their close and continued association with him. As- 
sumptions of this character are overthrown by a little 
attention to the New Testament writings. Open the 
earliest of the Gospels, that of Mark, an attendant of 
Peter. We read : " And the chief priests and all the 
council sought for witness against Jesus to put him 
to death ; and found none. For many bare false 
witness against him, but their witness agreed not 
together" (xiv. 55, 56). This looks as if the Evan- 
gelist, and those from whom he received his infor- 
mation, had some idea of the need of testimony to 
substantiate assertions, and of the necessity of com- 
paring it and sifting it. Open the Gospel of Luke, an 
attendant of Paul, and hear him say that the reason 
of his writing was that — for so the passage is cor- 
rectly rendered in the Revised Version — he had 
" traced the course of all things accurately from the 
first," having derived his information, as he adds, from 
"eye-witnesses." This looks as if Luke were aware of 



36 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the importance of being careful not to mistake fiction 
for fact, and understood the importance of going to 
the right sources of information. " Ye are witnesses 
of these things," are words of Jesus to the disciples, 
which Luke also records. Peter, as we learn from 
the Acts, declared to his fellow-believers that on ac- 
count of the defection of Judas it was requisite to 
choose another in his place from those who had been 
with the Apostles all through the public ministry of 
Jesus, " beginning from the baptism of John." And 
why from this class alone ? Let Peter answer : " To 
become a witness with us of his resurrection." This 
looks as if the Apostle Peter understood what the 
function of the Apostles was, what they had been 
chosen for, and what were the proper qualifications 
for the office. This account of the proposal of Peter 
is a portion of the book of Acts which has been ac- 
cepted even by Baur and his followers as authentic 
history. Notice how carefully the Apostle Paul, in 
the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians, reviews the testimony of the Apostles to the 
resurrection of Jesus, and his emphatic declaration, 
" If Christ be not risen ... we are found false wit- 
nesses." It is evident, as one has said, that Paul was 
no easy convert. 

The Disciples, — whose testimony makes up the 
contents of the Gospels, — in their absorption in what 
they had seen and heard, and in their sense of its 
transcendent interest and importance, forgot them- 
selves. They were not in a mood to spin tales out of 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 37 

their own fancy. And their situation left no room for 
idle musing. They found it to be as they had been 
forewarned ; they were brought before magistrates 
and called on to give their reasons for believing in 
Jesus (Matt, x. 18 ; Luke xxi. 12). 

There is another misconception — akin to that just 
noticed — which is frequently met with. Such was 
the credulity then and there, we are told, that the 
miraculous, or what was conceived to be the miracu- 
lous, was in the line of ordinary expectation, and gave 
no shock of surprise. But let us consult the Gospels 
on this point. From the oldest of the documents we 
learn that when Jesus healed by a word a helpless 
paralytic, "they were all amazed," and exclaimed, 
"We never saw it on this fashion" (Mark ii. 12). 
The multitude was struck with fear (Matt. ix. 8). 
On another like occasion they said : " It was never 
so seen in Israel " (Matt. ix. 33). " Since the world 
began it was never heard that any one opened the 
eyes of a man born blind." Thus spoke the man on 
whom the miracle had been wrought (John ix. 32). 

Christianity is a religion of facts. They are not 
appendages, — ornaments, so to speak, about the neck 
of a king, with regard to which it matters not whether 
they are worn or discarded. Luther and the other 
Reformers were wise in feeling " the extreme danger 
of substituting their belief for the object of it, and so 
destroying the reality of both." Miracles are more 
than proofs ; they are constituent elements of Revela- 
tion, which unveils not only the mercy and tender- 



38 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION 

ness, but also the power of God, and his sovereignty 
over nature. They were, moreover, symbols of the 
spiritual energy to go forth from the Saviour's person 
and work in the world. Not only are they emblems 
of this energy, they inspire confidence in its efficacy. 
"They become arguments of trust, a storehouse of 
powerful images that invigorate courage and stimu- 
late hope." They were prophetic of the blessings, 
outward as well as inward, to flow out to mankind in 
the train of his redemptive agency. " The character 
of Jesus," to quote the words of Horace Bushnell, 
" is ever shining with and through them, in clear self- 
evidence, leaving them never to stand as raw wonders 
only of might, but covering them with glory, as tokens 
of a heavenly love, and acts that only suit the propor- 
tions of his personal greatness and majesty." The 
sign-seeking spirit, the appetite for marvels, the dis- 
position to find nowhere except in miracles evidence 
of God's presence and of his own mission from God, 
the demand for an extraordinary, stupendous sign 
from heaven, Jesus rebuked. But this is all. Espe- 
cially is the resurrection the perfecting of his own 
person, the " first-fruits " as well as the sign of the 
redemption of man's entire being. It is consistent 
for those to reject the miracles who, like the author 
of u Robert Elsmere," hold that " personality or intel- 
ligence " has no meaning " as applied to God." The 
real, but often unperceived, issue is between a distinct 
theism, in which the personality of God, as well as of 
man, is fully recognized, and a real, though it be a 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 39 

vague, undefined pantheism. The attempt to resolve 
the miracles of the Gospel into subjective experiences 
is to dissolve Christianity into thin air. It properly 
belongs in a scheme of pantheistic idealism. The 
remark that " miracles do not now occur," if intended 
as an argument, is fallacious. The questions ought 
to be whether in case Jesus Christ were on the earth 
they would not occur, and whether they were not to 
be expected at the introduction of that spiritual and 
universal society of which he was the founder. That 
nature is not supreme, and man a slave to blind laws, 
it was surely well for the divine Head of the new 
kingdom to demonstrate, and thus to meet the yearn- 
ings of the race for the revelation of a power superior 
to material forces. Unless there is a demonstration 
that " the world is subject to God, and not to chance 
or nature ; that there is an order, far more beautiful 
and perfect than that of sun and stars, in which men 
are intended to abide, and in which everything that is 
great and noble within them receives its full develop- 
ment, — I see not how this materialist superstition 
can fail to become the creed of every nation, and to 
bring about the decay of all institutions and political 
life, all feeling, affection, hope." " If," adds Maurice, 
from whom the foregoing passage is quoted, " Chris- 
tianity be the manifestation of a spiritual kingdom ; if 
it be the satisfaction of the dreams of past ages ; if it 
be that which was to exhibit through all the compli- 
cations of after ages what is the law which governs 
them, and who is the Giver of that law, — then we 



40 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

cannot see how it could enter the world without mira- 
cles, or how those miracles should not be such as the 
Bible affirms that they were." If the stories of the 
miracles of Christ are " in accordance with the scrip- 
tural idea of the Founder of a spiritual and universal 
kingdom, ... we should require evidence to account 
for their omission in any record proposing to convey 
the history of such a person. We should have a right 
to ask, Why did he give no signs that he came to con- 
nect the visible with the invisible world ; why did he 
do nothing to break the yoke of custom and experi- 
ence, — nothing to show men that the constutition 
which he pretended to reveal and establish has a true 
foundation ? Take away the miracles, and there is an 
inexplicable chasm and inconsistency in these records 
which it would require a vast amount of wit and in- 
genuity to explain." 

It is plain that a great deal of the current criticism 
of the historical writings of the Bible is affected by a 
pre-existing bias against the supernatural element in 
these narratives. There is at the start a prejudice 
which warps the judgment respecting their date and 
authorship and their general credibility. This pre- 
judice, when the purpose and scope of Revelation are 
properly conceived, will be felt to be unwarrantable. 
At the same time it is evident that the wide concur- 
rence of Christian scholars in rejecting the rigid 
doctrine of an absolute inerrancy in these histori- 
cal writings, is owing to no spirit of scepticism of 
the sort described. Modified conceptions on this 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 41 

subject have arisen and spread within the Church 
among students of the Bible who are not lacking in 
faith or reverence. They have been adopted as an 
inevitable incident of the conscientious examination 
and comparison of the writings themselves. That 
Apostles and Prophets were inspired of God to set 
forth the contents of divine revelation ; that even the 
historical books composed by them are permeated 
with the ideas drawn from a supernatural source ; 
that the writings composed by pupils or attendants 
of the Apostles partake of the same character, and 
are penetrated with the perceptions that flowed from 
the authoritative teachers near whom they stood ; that 
misinterpretations of the essential nature of the Gos- 
pel were precluded by the agency of the Spirit who 
was to throw light on the sayings of Christ, and on 
the events whose meaning was at first so dark to the 
minds of the disciples, but was to become clear in 
the retrospect, — all this forms a part of the common 
faith of Christians. It is another thing to say that, 
beyond this inspiration, a certain divine assistance 
was forever at hand, when evangelist or other his- 
torian took up his pen, to check him by a negative 
influence — acting after the manner of the demon of 
Socrates — when the author was about to misplace 
the date of an occurrence, or to vary from rigid 
accuracy in matters of circumstantial detail. What 
a stupendous miracle would be involved in imparting 
this impeccable character to so large a body of his- 
torical writings as the Bible contains, — writings 



42 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

which run through so many ages ! Of what avail 
would it be, unless not only the original writers, but 
also amanuenses and transcribers, were all to be 
equally guarded to the end of time ? Exaggerated 
statements on this subject are the occasion, at pres- 
ent, of two great evils. One mischievous consequence 
of them is that the truth and divine origin of Chris- 
tianity are staked on the literal correctness of even 
the minutest particulars in the copious narratives of 
Scripture. The conscientious student, seeing that 
such views are untenable in the light of fair histori- 
cal criticism, is virtually bidden to draw the inference 
that the foundations of the Christian faith are gone. 
Moreover, some of the most impressive arguments 
in defence of historical Christianity, which depend 
on the presence of unessential discrepancies, showing 
the absence of collusion, and in various other ways 
confirming the truthfulness of the main features of 
the narrative, are precluded from being used when- 
ever the obsolescent theory that the biblical narra- 
tives are drawn up with the pedantic accuracy of 
a notary public is still insisted on. It is a concep- 
tion of inspiration, it may be added, which the sacred 
historians themselves do not allege. When Luke will 
indicate to Theophilus that his narrative is to be re- 
lied on, he appeals to the opportunities afforded him 
for getting possession of the facts, through the per- 
sonal intercourse which he has had with those who 
were directly cognizant of them. To the historical 
student the magnifying of dissonances and the for- 



REVELATION" AND THE BIBLE. 43 

cing of harmonies are alike obnoxious. They are 
equally an affront to the moral sense. They both 
count for nothing when confronted with a critical 
tact which sees where the truth lies, divines the 
secret of inconsistencies, and leaves undetermined 
whatever the documentary sources offer no means 
of settling. Nothing that the human hand touches, 
no record of the past, is utterly free from blemishes. 
Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon) writes of the Duke of 
Wellington : " The conversation turned as to how 
testimonies vary and how difficult it is to get at a 
real fact. The Duke gave some instances of it. ' Thus 
there is one event noted in the world, — the battle 
of Waterloo, — and you will not find any two people 
to agree as to the exact hour when it commenced.' " 
Lord Mahon was unusually accurate and careful in 
recording what he heard Wellington say ; yet he 
quoted the Duke as having remarked that he had 
counted " the presence of Napoleon at a battle as 
equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men." 
But the Duke in a memorandum made a correction. 
" It is very true," he wrote, " that I considered Na- 
poleon's presence in the field to be equal to forty 
thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose 
way of talking ; but the idea is a very different one 
from that of his presence at a battle being equal to 
a reinforcement of forty thousand men." There is 
a curious lack of agreement in the contemporary 
records of the last words spoken by Martin Luther 
at the Diet of Worms, and thus a difference of opi- 



44 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

nion as to what he really said. On the whole, there 
is good reason to conclude that the common account 
accords with the fact ; yet this verdict is arrived at 
only after a careful collation of evidence. Variations 
not unlike the above meet us in the New Testament 
historical writings ; for example, in the accounts of 
the denials of Peter, of the crucifixion, of the resur- 
rection. They are not to be got rid of by artificial 
adjustments. Some of the mosaics formed in this 
way are mechanical, and anything but edifying. The 
same critical judgment must be called into exercise 
that is requisite in dealing with all other historical 
documents. Is it said that the common man is not 
possessed of the requisite leisure or skill for such 
an undertaking ? The answer is, first, that neither 
is he qualified for textual criticism or for making 
the choice between disputed readings, of which there 
are so many ; secondly, that he is under no greater 
disadvantage than he is subject to in connection with 
other authentic narratives, including the most ap- 
proved histories of his own country ; and thirdly, that 
the impression — the aggregate impression — which 
is made on the mind may be quite true and adequate, 
despite a degree of uncertainty in relation to minor 
circumstances. The presence in the Bible of parallel 
narratives covering the same field, as in the case of 
the four Gospels, puts it in our power not only to see 
how events appeared from somewhat different points 
of view, but also to combine complementary accounts 
and to rectify imperfections. It may seem an un- 



REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 45 

gracious task to advert even to slight imperfections 
in a book so precious as the Bible, as it is an ungra- 
cious task in a child to touch on the faults of a parent. 
But there stands the great spying of the Apostle : 
" We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the 
excellency of the power may be of God, and not of 
us." In the case of the writings and of the men the 
jewel was not to be confounded with the casket that 
held it. Some there are who are so dazzled by the 
treasure that they imagine the vessel to be also of 
gold. Others, seeing that the vessel is earthenware, 
rashly conclude that its contents are of the same 
coarse material. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 

" First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear." This picture Jesus himself drew of the 
foreseen diffusion of his kingdom. The kingdom was 
to be " as if a man should cast seed upon the earth." 
He plants it and leaves it ; he sleeps and rises, " night 
and day." Meantime the seed springs up and grows, 
" he knoweth not how." It goes through, one after 
another, the stages of development up to the ripeness 
of the fruit. A parable, it need scarcely be said, 
is framed to illustrate one point, and is not to be 
pressed beyond the intended scope. As rain and sun- 
shine are required for the growth of wheat, we are 
taught elsewhere that divine influences are needful, 
and are never disconnected from the operation of the 
truth in the minds of men. There is enough com- 
plementary teaching of Jesus to preclude any mistake 
or one-sided view in this direction. Yet the parable 
shows the confidence of Jesus in the perpetuity and 
progress of his kingdom. There resides in it, so he 
declared, a self-preserving, self-developing life. The 
seed, once planted, might be left with entire uncon- 
cern as to its growth. In these days, when " develop- 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 47 

ment " is a word on every tongue, we are often told 
that the conception of nature and natural law is 
foreign to the Scriptures. No assertion could be 
more mistaken. Even on the first page of the Bible, 
although the design there is to set in the foreground 
the creative agency of God, we read that the earth 
was bidden to bring forth the grass, the herb, and 
the fruit-tree, each yielding, " after his kind," " whose 
seed is in itself." In the parable of Jesus of which 
we are speaking, it is said that " the earth bringeth 
forth fruit of herself," — that is, to transfer the Greek 
term into English, " automatically." That epithet 
is chosen which denotes most precisely a self-acting, 
spontaneous energy, inherent in the seed which Jesus, 
through his discourses, his acts of mercy and power, 
and his patience unto death, was sowing in the world. 
This grand prophetic declaration, uttered in a figure 
so simple and beautiful, in the ears of a little com- 
pany of Galileans, was to be wonderfully verified 
in the coming ages of Christian history. 

It is not, however, the progress of Christianity 
since it was fully introduced by Christ and the 
Apostles that we have now to consider. The de- 
velopment of the understanding of Christianity on 
the side of doctrine and of ethics, the advance to 
a more and more just and enlightened comprehen- 
sion of the Christian religion, the unveiling of the 
riches of meaning involved in it, is a fascinating 
theme. But all this belongs under the head of the 
interpretation of Christianity, that term being used 



48 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

in a broad sense. The religion of the Gospel means 
vastly more to-day than it was ever perceived to mean 
before. This enlarged meaning, however, is not an- 
nexed to it or carried into it, but legitimately educed 
from it, through the ever-widening perceptions of 
Christian men whom the Spirit of God illuminates. 
The starry heavens are now what they were of old ; 
there is no enlargement of the stellar universe except 
that which comes through the increased power and 
use of the telescope. The globe on which we dwell 
to-day is the same that it was twenty centuries ago. 
Yet during the past ages there has been a progressive 
advance in astronomical and geographical discovery. 
No one commits the blunder of confounding discovery 
with creation. 

What we have to speak of now is development 
and progress in the contents of Revelation itself, in 
the interval between its remotest beginnings and the 
epoch when the Apostles finally handed it over in 
its ripe, consummated form to the Church, to be there- 
after promulgated throughout the world. Of divine 
revelation itself the saying is likewise true : " First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear." The fact that Revelation was progressive, that 
it went forward like the advance from dawn to noon- 
day, may suggest the hasty, unwarranted conclusion 
that it was a natural process merely. Some will be 
quick to leap to this rash inference. As regards 
natural religion, the fact that creation is found to 
have been progressive, that unsuspected links unite 



THE GRADUALXESS OF REVELATION. 49 

its consecutive stages, that the tendency of science 
is to unveil a certain continuity in nature, leads the 
shortsighted to ignore the supernatural altogether. 
They imagine that there is no need to call in God to 
explain nature except where breaks are met in the 
chain of mechanical causation. It is enough, they 
imagine, to be able to trace back the planetary sys- 
tem to a fiery vapor preceding it, as if the existence, 
or the order, or the beauty, of the astronomic system 
were thereby explained. If it be true that the plants 
in their multiplied species or " kinds " spring out of 
a few primitive germs, or out of only one, the evi- 
dence of forethought and will-power in the organiza- 
tion of the vegetable kingdom is not in the least 
weakened. Nor would it be effaced if the spontane- 
ous generation of the living from the lifeless were an 
ascertained fact of science. It is another fruit of that 
same unreflecting tendency to dispense with God where 
there is observed an orderly progress of phenomena, 
which leads to the ignoring or denial of the super- 
natural in connection with the gradually developing 
religion of redemption. The critical researches of 
the time disclose bonds of connection between suc- 
cessive stages of religious and moral teaching in the 
sacred volume. As in geology, there is less need 
than was formerly thought to fall back on the suppo- 
sition of catastrophes along the path. The rudiments 
of what once seemed an utterly new form or phase 
of doctrine are detected at a point farther back. Be- 
hind the most impressive inculcations of truth are 



50 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

found the more or less unshapen materials out of 
which they were framed. The statue is followed 
back through the different sets of workmen to the 
quarry where the marble was hewn out of its bed. 
Before the Lord's Prayer was given by the Master, 
some of the petitions contained in it had lain dis- 
persed, like grains of gold, in the arid waste of rab- 
binical teaching. The first effect on a novice in 
literary studies of looking behind Shakspeare's plays 
to the tales out of which they were woven, is to lessen 
in some slight degree his previous impression of the 
poet's originality. In a much greater degree is this 
effect produced by a first glance at the spoils of the 
past which Milton gathered — from Homer, the Greek 
tragedians, Dante — and incorporated into his poems. 
That revealed religion is revealed, and is not the pro- 
duct of human genius, despite the gradual unfolding of 
that religion and the coherence of its parts, becomes 
increasingly evident the more thoroughly its charac- 
teristics are appreciated. Its unique character finds 
no satisfactory explanation in the native tendencies of 
the Semitic race. History belies such a naturalistic 
solution, of which Renan is one of the later advocates. 
This can be said while it is conceded that there were, 
no doubt, qualities in the Hebrew people which caused 
them to be selected as the recipients of revelation, 
and as witnesses for God to the rest of mankind. 
When we contemplate the true religion in its long, 
continuous advance upwards to its culmination in the 
Gospel of Christ ; when we survey this entire course 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 51 

of history as a connected whole, — we are struck with 
the conviction of supernatural agency and author- 
ship. When the outcome appears at the end in Jesus 
Christ and his work, light is thrown back on the di- 
vine ordering of the long series of antecedent steps. 
The accompaniment of miracle is a crowning token, 
reinforcing all other proofs of the supernatural, and 
confirming faith by an argument to the senses. 

In glancing at the historic process of revelation, as 
that is disclosed by the scriptural documents, there is 
one transition which none can overlook. It is the 
contrast, on which the Apostle Paul builds so much, 
between law and gospel, the old covenant and the 
new. It is true that the Old Testament is not want- 
ing in proclamations of the merciful character of God. 
The Apostle Paul himself insists that the Old Testa- 
ment religion was, in its very foundation, a religion 
of promise, and that the law came in to fill an inter- 
mediate space and to do a subsidiary office, prior to 
the realization of the promise. His doctrine is, more- 
over, that even the Gospel contains a new disclosure 
of God's righteousness, which was made necessary by 
his having passed over human sins in the period of 
comparative ignorance. The atonement prevents the 
misconstruction which the divine forbearance in deal- 
ing with law-breakers in the earlier times might have 
occasioned. Still, the earlier revelation of God was 
predominantly a manifestation designed to impress on 
those to whom it was made his justice and unsparing 
abhorrence of transgression. Only as far as ill-desert 



52 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

is felt can pardon be either given or received. An 
education of conscience must precede a dispensation of 
grace. The later revelation was one of forgiving love. 
The superiority of Christianity to the Old Testament 
religion is the subject of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
Its author will show that Christ is the " mediator of 
a better covenant," — a covenant with " better prom- 
ises." " For," he pointedly remarks, " if that first 
covenant had been faultless," there would have been 
no occasion and no room for the second. The world- 
embracing compass of God's love, its inclusion of the 
Gentile races, was one of the prime elements in the 
Gospel. This was the " mystery " which had been 
hidden from " ages and generations." The ordinary 
meaning of the term " mystery " in the New Testa- 
ment writings is not something which is still unknown 
or inscrutable, but something which had before been 
concealed from human knowledge, but had now been 
brought to light. And the term is specially applied 
to the purpose of God to show mercy to the world of 
mankind, — a purpose which had been concealed from 
men, or at best but obscurely divined. 

What precisely was the conception of God which 
was entertained in the earliest periods of Hebrew his- 
tory, is a subject of debate. There are questions which 
will be settled variously, according to the different 
views which are adopted respecting the date and rela- 
tive authority of the documents. That the process of 
expelling the vestiges of polytheism and image-worship 
from the practices of the Israelitish people was accom- 



THE GRADUALKESS OF REVELATION. 53 

plished slowly, is sufficiently clear. The assumption, 
involved in language uttered by the heathen, that the 
gods of other nations than Israel are real beings and 
exercise power, although it may be less than the power 
of Israel's God, determines nothing as to the doctrine 
of Israel's own accredited teachers. But Jethro, al- 
though a Midianite prince, was the father-in-law of 
Moses, and we find him saying, "Now I know that 
the Lord is greater than all gods." Jephthah says to 
a Moabite king : " Wilt thou not possess that which 
Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess ? So whom- 
soever the Lord our God hath dispossessed from before 
us, them will we possess." Even Solomon wavered in 
his beliefs on this subject. Side by side with the altars 
of Jehovah he built altars to foreign gods. Even in 
the early Church the idea prevailed that the deities of 
the heathen were demons, — really existing, but evil 
and inferior in power. It would be natural for the 
less-instructed Hebrews to imagine that there was 
some sort of territorial limit to the jurisdiction of the 
God whom they worshipped. An indistinct idea of 
this kind is at least a natural explanation of the story 
of the attempted flight of the prophet Jonah to Tar- 
shish, which lay on the western border of the Medi- 
terranean. There is a curious disclosure of a natural 
feeling in the fact recorded, without censure or com- 
ment of any sort, of Naaman, the Syrian captain. He 
craved permission to take into Syria two mules' bur- 
den of earth, — the sacred soil of Israel, — that upon 
it he might offer sacrifice to Jehovah. Some scholars 



54 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

there are who consider the earliest belief of the de- 
scendants of Abraham to have fallen short of a posi- 
tive monotheism, and to have been rather a monolatry, 
— the worship of one God to the exclusion of all other 
worship, but without an explicit disbelief in the exis- 
tence of other divinities who have respectively their 
own earthly realms to govern. Then the progress of 
faith would include, first, the idea of the God of Israel 
as more powerful than all other deities ; and then, later, 
the ascription to him of almightiness, and the distinct 
conviction that all other gods are fictitious beings. 
But the scriptural evidence in favor of this succession 
in the phases of faith is scanty. We are speaking 
now not of the populace, but of their more enlight- 
ened and steadfast guides. The path from a more 
narrow conception of God to a pure and absolute 
monotheism is supposed by some to have been through 
a deepening ethical idea of the attributes of Israel's 
God. Wellhausen writes : " Jehovah became the God 
of Justice and Right ; as God of Justice and Right he 
came to be thought of as the highest, and at last as 
the only, power in heaven and earth." The reader of 
statements of this kind should bear in mind that we 
are in a field where prepossession and theory play a 
great part. If it could be established that Jehovah, 
at the outset, was regarded as simply the tribal god, 
the sovereign protector of that one people, while the 
other nations were imagined to have each its own 
guardian divinity, — still the expansion of this primi- 
tive notion into the pure and lofty conception of the 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 55 

only true and living God, the world's creator and 
ruler, which is presented in soul-stirring language by 
the most ancient prophets, is a marvel. The trans- 
formation is really insoluble on any naturalistic theory. 
Even on the supposition that there was this gradual 
uplifting of religion from the low plane on which all 
pagan nations stood, and that the notion of a mere 
local divinity, of limited control, gave way to the ma- 
jestic conception of one Lord of heaven and earth, the 
maker of all things, the ruler of nations, the universal 
sovereign, — no conclusion would be so reasonable as 
that God Almighty took this method of gradually dis- 
closing his being and attributes to that portion of the 
human race from whom, as from a centre, the light of 
the true faith was eventually to radiate to the rest of 
mankind. 

Neither the Hebrew people generally nor their lead- 
ers were metaphysicians. In the earlier ages espe- 
cially, they entered into no analytic discrimination of 
matter and spirit. They pictured to themselves the 
varied activities of God, of whose personality they had 
the most vivid idea, in phrases descriptive of the feel- 
ings and actions of human beings. It is remarkable 
that the anthropomorphism of the scriptural writers 
is predominantly in what is related of Jehovah, the 
name of God in his relation to the chosen people, — 
the Deity (Elohim) as the God of Revelation. Yet 
from the beginning, all visible representations of God 
were forbidden as profane. In Exodus, as well as 
Deuteronomy, images of him are prohibited. " Ye 



56 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

saw no manner of form on the day that the Lord 
spake unto you in Horeb" (Deut. iv. 15). More and 
more, as time went on, the prophets guarded against 
all material associations attaching to the notion of the 
Supreme Being. A distinct step in this direction is 
to be observed in a passage of Isaiah, where it is said : 
" Now the Egyptians are men, and not God ; and their 
horses flesh, and not spirit" (Is. xxxi. 3). Yet it is 
not explicitly said in the Old Testament that God 
is a spirit. This was the declaration of Jesus to the 
woman of Samaria. 

The universal Providence of God is a cardinal ele- 
ment in Christian theism. Nothing is independent of 
him. There is no province exempt from his control, 
where rival agencies hold sway and thwart his designs. 
We can easily understand why, in the early stages of 
revelation, all emphasis should be laid on the sovereign 
power of God, and why a clear separation of his direct 
efficiency from his permissive act should be reserved 
for a later day. It was always taught, indeed, and 
holds true for all time, that according to a law of 
habit, of which the Creator of the soul is the author 
and sustainer, sin engenders further sin. A self- 
propagating power inheres in transgression. In num- 
berless examples it is observed that sin is thus the 
penalty of sin. It is true now, as it was always true, 
that a loss of moral discernment and a fixedness of 
perverse inclination are an ordained effect of persis- 
tent evil-doing. The law which entails this result is 
but another name for a divine operation. Hence it is 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 57 

a false and superficial theology which will find no 
place for " judicial blindness " and for a " hardening 
of heart" that deserves to be called a judgment of 
God. So far the Scriptures of the New Testament 
are in full accord with the Scriptures of the Old. 
But there are certain forms of representation which, 
in the introductory periods of Revelation, go beyond 
these statements, and ascribe to God a positive and 
immediate agency in the production of moral evil. 
Sometimes the hardening of the heart is spoken of as 
if it were the end which is directly aimed at. Such 
passages, taken by themselves, would warrant the 
harshest doctrine of reprobation which hyper-Calvin- 
ism has ever broached. The proper treatment of such 
passages is not — certainly not in all cases — to pro- 
nounce them hyperboles. It is not through unnatural 
devices of interpretation that we are to rid ourselves 
of the difficulty which passages of this nature occa- 
sion. The reference of them to a fervid rhetoric — in 
some instances, to say the least — may not be the 
right solution. Why may we not see in them that 
vivid idea of God's limitless power and providence 
which has not yet arrived at the point, or felt the 
need, of qualifying the conception by theological dis- 
criminations ? If it be asked how it was possible to 
reconcile the perception of the ill-desert of sin with 
the ascription of it to God's causal agency, the answer 
is that the inconsistency was not thought of. Reflec- 
tion was required before the inconsistency referred to 
could attract attention, and the need of removing it 



58 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

be felt. In more than one philosophical system — for 
example, in Stoicism — there is found an earnest ethi- 
cal feeling, which condemns wrong action, side by side 
with a metaphysical theory as to the origin of moral 
evil which logically clashes with such an abhorrence 
of it. The two judgments do not jostle each other, 
because they are not brought together in the thoughts 
of those who entertain them. Where there is more 
reflection in the matter, as in Spinoza and his follow- 
ers, it is still possible to keep up a degree of moral 
disapproval along with a theory which really ought to 
banish it as absurd. In the ancient Scriptures, and 
occasionally in the New Testament, especially in pas- 
sages cited from the Old, the evil-doing and perdition 
of classes of men, their misunderstanding and perver- 
sion of the truth, are set forth as ends in themselves. 
Being involved in the circle of occurrences which are 
comprised in the general scheme of Providence, they 
are no surprise to him who carries it forward. They 
were foreseen and taken into the account from the 
beginning. It was arranged that they should be over- 
ruled and made the occasion of good. Their relation 
to Providence is emphasized in speaking of them as 
being directly aimed at and pursued on their own 
account, or for the sake of an ulterior benefit. As 
we follow down the progress of Revelation, Ave see 
that needful distinctions are more frequently made 
and more carefully insisted on. In the second book 
of Samuel (xxiv. 1) it is said that God " moved " 
David against Israel, with whom he was displeased, 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 59 

and bade him go and number the people. The im- 
pulse or resolution of David, on account of which 
he was subsequently struck with compunction, is 
there said to have emanated directly from God him- 
self. But in the later history (1 Chron.. xxi. 1), 
in the record of the same transaction, we read that 
it was Satan who " provoked David to number Israel." 
The earlier writer does not hesitate to describe God's 
providential act as if it were the direct product of his 
preference, — an explicit injunction; and the fact of 
David's repentance for doing the act does not present 
to the writer's mind any difficulty. The chronicler, 
from a later point of view, sets forth the act of David 
in such a way as to exclude, if not to contradict, the 
supposition that it was God who prompted it. 

The gradualness of the disclosure of the merciful 
character of God is one of the most obvious features 
of Revelation. One part of this disclosure pertains to 
the heathen, and to the light in which they are re- 
garded. It was natural that the contempt and loath- 
ing which idolatry and the abominations of paganism 
excited in the heart of the pious Israelite — feelings 
which the Mosaic revelation developed and stimulated 
— should be felt towards heathen worshippers them- 
selves. The hatred thus begotten might awaken an 
implacable desire that vengeance should fall upon 
them. An impressive rebuke of this unmerciful sen- 
timent, and what is really a distinct advance in the in- 
culcation of an opposite feeling, is found in the book 
of Jonah. There are reasons which have availed to 



60 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

satisfy critics as learned and impartial as Bleek, who 
are influenced by no prejudice against miracles as 
such, that this remarkable book was originally meant 
to be an apologue, — an imaginative story, linked to 
the name of an historical person, a prophet of an ear- 
lier date, — and was composed in order to inculcate 
the lesson with which the narrative concludes. This 
was the opinion also of the late Dr. T. D. Woolsey. 
One thing brought out by the experience of Jonah is 
that so great is God's mercy that even an explicit 
threat of dire calamities may be left unfulfilled, in 
case there intervene repentance on the part of those 
against whom it was directed. The prophet, who was 
exasperated at the sparing of the Ninevites, was taught 
how narrow and cruel his ideas were, by the symbol 
of the gourd, " which came up in a night, and perished 
in a night." He was incensed on account of the 
withering of the gourd which had shielded his head 
from the sun. The Lord referred to Jonah's having 
had pity on the gourd, and said : " And should not I 
spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than 
sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between 
their right hand and their left hand ; and also much 
cattle ? " This humane utterance, in which pity is 
expressed even for dumb brutes, is memorable for 
being an important landmark in Scripture, since it 
marks a widened view of God's compassion. To il- 
lustrate this truth the narrative was written, and to- 
wards it as onward to a goal it steadily moves. It 
is a mistake to think that ill-will towards heathen 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 61 

nations pervades the Old Testament. When they 
were full of animosity against the kingdom of God 
and determined to destroy it, anger burned fiercely 
against them, and prayers went up for their defeat 
and destruction. Very different was the feeling with 
which Cyrus and the Persians were regarded. We 
find that the conversion of the heathen nations be- 
comes an object of devout aspiration. The sublime 
prayer of Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, 
for the " stranger " and " the peoples of the earth," 
is only one of the passages in which this feeling is 
poured out. In Micah, who was not the latest of the 
prophets, we find the prediction that unto the moun- 
tain of the Lord the heathen peoples will flow, will 
ask to be taught of his ways, and will promise to 
" walk in his paths " (Micah, iv. 1-4). An idea of 
the kingdom at once so comprehensive and so spirit- 
ual, was the fruit of time and progress. 

The truth of a righteous moral government over 
the world pervades Revelation from the beginning. 
Obedience to law will not fail of its due reward ; guilt 
will be punished in a just measure. But under the 
Old Testament system, nearly to its close, the theatre 
of reward and penalty was confined to this world. 
The horizon was practically bounded by the limits of 
the earthly life. It was here, on earth, that well- 
doing was to secure the appropriate blessing, and sin 
to encounter its meet retribution. The Israelite, like 
other men of antiquity, was wrapped up in the state. 
He felt that his weal or woe hinged on the fortunes 



62 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of the community in whose well-being his affections 
were, in a degree beyond our modern experience, ab- 
sorbed. The prophets never ceased to thunder forth 
the proclamation that the fate of the community would 
be surely, in the providence of God, determined by its 
fidelity or its disloyalty to its moral and religious 
obligations. If they deserted God, he would forsake 
them. The people were to be rewarded or punished, 
blessed or cursed, as a body. And so in reality their 
experience proved. Moreover, as regards the single 
family and the individual, the tendencies of righteous 
action, under the laws of Providence, were then, as 
always, on the whole favorable to the upright in heart ; 
The arrangements of Providence were in their favor. 
But in process of time it became more and more pain- 
fully evident that this rule was not without numer- 
ous exceptions. The righteous man was not uniformly 
prospered. He might be poor, he might be oppressed, 
he might be condemned to endure physical torture, 
he might perish in the midst of his days. On the 
other hand, the wicked man was often seen to thrive. 
His wealth increased. He grew in power and influ- 
ence. His life was prolonged. How could the justice 
of God be defended ? How could the allotments of 
Providence — this disharmony between character and 
earthly fortune — be vindicated ? This problem be- 
came the more anxious and perplexing as the minds of 
men grew to be more observant and reflective. How to 
explain the lack of correspondence between the condi- 
tion and the deserts of the individual ? This problem 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 63 

is the groundwork of the book of Job. A righteous 
man is overwhelmed by calamities one after another. 
His lot is to himself a dark and terrible mystery. 
But his consolers, when they break silence, solve it in 
the only way known to their theology. Such excep- 
tional suffering implies an exceptional amount of guilt. 
Job must have been a flagrant transgressor. Of this 
fact his dismal situation is proof positive. The wrath 
of Jehovah is upon him. Conscious of the injustice 
of the allegation brought against him, yet unable to 
confute the logic of it, Job can do nothing but break 
out in loud complaints extorted by his anguish and 
the bewilderment into which he is thrown. He can- 
not see any equity in the lot which has befallen him. 
His outcries give vent to a pessimistic view of the 
world and of the divine management of it. Another 
interlocutor brings forward the inscrutable character 
of God's doings. What more vain and arrogant than 
for so weak and helpless a creature as man to pretend 
to sound the unfathomable counsels of the Almighty, 
or to sit in judgment on his ordinances ? This, of 
course, is a rebuke, but contains no satisfactory answer 
to the questions which the distress of Job wrings from 
him. But the real answer is given. Afflictions may 
have other ends than to punish. They may be trials 
of the righteousness of a servant of God. They are a 
test to decide whether it springs out of a mercenary 
motive. Hence it is not to be inferred that his suf- 
ferings are the measure of his ill-desert. Thus a dis- 
tinct advance is made in the theodicy. New vistas 



64 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

are opened. Pain has other designs and uses besides 
the retributive function. Yet at the end Job's pos- 
sessions and his earthly prosperity are restored to 
him. The feeling that even here on earth there must 
be, sooner or later, an equalizing of character and 
fortune, is not wholly given up. 

It was revealed, then, to the religious mind that 
suffering, besides being inflicted as the wages of sin, 
might also be sent to put to the test the steadfast- 
ness of the sufferer's loyalty to God, to prove the un- 
selfishness of piety (by showing that it might survive 
the loss of all personal advantages resulting from it), 
and to fortify the soul in its principle of obedience 
and trust. But relief from perplexity in view of the 
calamities of the righteous came from another source. 
This was the perception of the vicarious character of 
the righteous man's affliction. This idea emerges to 
view in a very distinct form in the great prophets. 
The pious portion of Israel, the kernel of the people, 
suffer not for their own sake, but on account of the 
sins of the nation, and as a means of saving it from 
deserved penalties and from utter destruction. This 
view is brought out by Isaiah in his description of the 
servant of Jehovah. The conception is gradually nar- 
rowed from Israel as a whole, or the select portion of 
Israel, and becomes more concrete ; so that in the 
fifty-third chapter the sufferer is an individual, the 
Messianic deliverer. It is declared that the popular 
judgment respecting the sufferer, which attributes to 
him personal guilt, and sees in his lot the frown of 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 65 

God, is mistaken. Penalties are laid on him, he is 
taking on himself penalties, which not he, hut others, 
deserve to bear. ■ How this principle of vicarious ser- 
vice is illustrated in the life and death of Jesus, and 
how abundantly it is set forth in the New Testament, 
it is needless to say. The men whose blood Pilate 
had mingled with their own sacrifices were not sin- 
ners above all the Galileans. The eighteen on whom 
the tower of Siloam fell were not offenders above all 
men that dwelt in Jerusalem. Who had sinned, the 
blind man or his parents, that he was born blind ? 
His blindness, Jesus replied, was not a penalty for the 
sin of either. This problem of the distribution here 
on earth of suffering in discordance with desert, of 
which we are speaking, had new light shed upon it by 
the gradually developing faith in the future life ; but 
of this point I will speak further on. In general, the 
contrast between the general tenor of Old Testament 
descriptions of the reward of the righteous, and of the 
New Testament declarations on the same theme, is 
very marked. In the Old Testament it is riches, 
numerous children, safety of person and of property, 
which are so often assured to the righteous. The 
words of Jesus are, " In the world ye shall have tribu- 
lation." Yet the essential character of God, the 
eternal principle of justice that will somehow and 
somewhere be carried out in the government of the 
world, is at the root alike in both dispensations. 

He who would appreciate the progress of Revelation 
has only need to compare the silence as to a hereafter 



66 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

and the gloom that encompasses the grave — charac- 
teristic features of ancient Scripture — with the defi- 
nite assurances and the triumphant hopes which arc 
scattered over the pages of the New Testament. On 
this subject we can trace the advance from the night 
to the brightening dawn, and from the dawn to mid- 
day. The hopes and aspirations of the ancient Israel- 
ites were bounded by the limits of the present life. 
Their joys and sorrows were here ; here, as we have 
seen, were their rewards and punishments. It is true 
they did not positively believe that their being was 
utterly extinguished at death. On the contrary, they 
found it impossible so to think. There was some 
kind of continuance of their being, vague and shad- 
owy though it was. When it is said of the worthies 
of old that they died and were " gathered to their 
fathers," it is not to their burial — certainly not to 
their burial alone — that the phrase points. It was 
used of those who died far away from their kindred. 
A continued subsistence of some sort is implied in it. 
Necromancy was a practice which was forbidden by 
law ; and the need of such a law proves that the belief 
and custom prohibited by it had taken root. The 
story of the appearance of Samuel, and the occupation 
of the witch of Endor, show at least a popular notion 
that the dead could be summoned back to life. Sheol, 
the Hades of the Israelites, was thought of as a dark, 
subterranean abode, a land of shades, where existence 
was almost too dim to be denominated life. There 
was nothing in this unsubstantial mode of being to 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 67 

kindle hope, or to excite any other emotion than that 
of dread. In the poetical books Sheol is personified 
and depicted as full of greed, opening her mouth 
"without measure," and swallowing up all the pomp 
and glory of man. In a splendid passage of Isaiah, 
Sheol is represented as disturbed by the approach 
within her gloomy domain of the once mighty king 
of Babylon, and as stirring up the shades, the dead 
monarchs, to meet him. They exult over his down- 
fall and death, crying, " Is this the man who made 
the earth to tremble, who made kingdoms to quake, 
who made the world as a wilderness, and broke down 
the cities thereof ? " But this is only a highly figura- 
tive delineation of the humiliating fall and death of 
the arrogant, dreaded sovereign. It is not until we 
have passed beyond the earlier writings of the Old 
Testament that we meet, here and there, with cheer- 
ful and even confident expressions of hope in relation 
to the life beyond death. In the later Psalms there 
is an occasional utterance in this vein. The sense of 
the soul's communion with God is so uplifting as to 
forbid the idea that it can be broken bj death. Jesus 
refers to the Old Testament declaration that God is 
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a sufficient 
warrant for the belief in the continued, immortal life 
of those who stood in this near, exalted relation to 
the Eternal One. What other — at least what higher 
— evidence of immortality is there than is derived 
from the worth of the soul ; and what indication of its 
worth is to be compared with its capacity to enter 



68 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

into living fellowship with God ? How can a being 
who is admitted to this fellowship be left to perish, 
to exist no more ? 

Besides this connection of faith in a future life 
with the relation of the righteous and believing soul to 
God, the demand for another state of being to rectify 
inequalities here arose by degrees in religious minds. 
The strange allotment of good and evil, whereby the 
good man, and not the bad man, was often seen to be 
the sufferer, and the holy were found to be maligned 
and the victims of oppression, led to the expectation 
of a life beyond, where this confusion would be cleared 
up, and an adjustment be made according to merit. 
The moral argument, which Kant, and others before 
and since, have presented as the ground for believing 
in a future state, was a revelation from God to the 
Hebrew mind, and not the less so because this belief 
stood connected with experiences and perceptions 
that went before. There is a familiar passage in the 
book of Job in which the hope of a reawakening from 
death is perhaps expressed. It is the passage begin- 
ning, " I know that my Redeemer " — or Vindicator 
— "liveth." The confessions of hopelessness in ear- 
lier portions of the book, the impassioned assertions 
that there is nothing to be looked for beyond death, 
are to be counted in favor of the other interpreta- 
tion, according to which Job expected that his vindi- 
cation would occur prior to his actual dissolution. On 
the contrary, however, it is not improbable that the 
foresight of an actual reawakening to life is repre- 



THE GRADU ALNESS OF REVELATION. 69 

sented as having flashed upon his mind, displacing 
the former despondency. Certain it is that distinct 
assertions of a resurrection appear, here and there, 
in the later Scriptures. For in the biblical theology 
it is the deliverance of the whole man, body as well 
as soul, which in process of time comes to be the 
established belief. It is closely associated with the 
conviction that in the triumph and blessedness of 
the kingdom the departed saints are not to be de- 
prived of a share. It was not a belief derived from 
the Persians, but was indigenous among the Hebrews, 
— an integral part of revelation, — however it may 
have been encouraged and stimulated by contact with 
Persian tenets. Not to refer to statements, relative 
to a resurrection, of a symbolical character, — such as 
the vision of dry bones in Ezekiel, — we find in the 
twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah a passage which is 
explicit, and, as it would seem, to be taken literally. 
In the Eevised Version the passage reads, " Thy dead 
shall live ; my dead bodies shall arise." There is a 
critical question, it should be stated, as to the date 
of the chapter in which these words occur. In the 
Psalms there are not wholly wanting passages of a 
like purport. In the book of Daniel the resurrection 
of both the righteous and the wicked Israelites is very 
definitely predicted. As is well known, the resurrec- 
tion was an accepted doctrine of orthodox Jews in 
the period following that covered by the canonical 
books. In the New Testament immortality, and with 
it the resurrection, stands in the foreground. Through 



70 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the death and resurrection of Jesus there comes a 
new illumination, a signal disclosure of God's pur- 
pose of grace and of the blessed import of eternal life ; 
so that death is said to be " abolished," and life and 
incorruption "brought to light" (2 Tim. i. 10). 

Other illustrations, within the sphere of religion as 
distinguished from ethics, of the gradual progress of 
Revelation, will occur to every student of the Bible. 
One of these we may find in the development of the 
idea of sacrifice. Among ancient peoples generally, 
the approach to a superior — a human lord — was by 
supplications and gifts. In the same way it was 
natural to approach the divinity, and come into im- 
mediate intercourse with him. As far as a special 
character belonged to Hebrew sacrifices, it was owing 
to the higher conceptions of God which pertained to 
the religion of Israel, and to the express ordinances 
and regulations under which all religious observances 
were placed. But the Old Testament sacrifices were 
gifts to God, varying in their specific import by the 
particular feelings to be expressed and the particu- 
lar benefits to be sought. A surrender was made of 
something precious, signifying self-devotion to Jeho- 
vah on the part of him who brought the offering. 
When there was a rupture of relations by reason of 
sin, the sacrifice took on a modified significance, and 
peculiar experiences of feeling were evoked in con- 
nection with it. In the age of the prophets, the 
spiritual elements of religion are brought into the 
foreground, and in comparison with them, and in case 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 71 

they are absent, the worthlessness of all ceremonial 
practices is loudly proclaimed. This elevated view 
comes out in the fifty-first Psalm, where God is said 
not to delight in sacrifice, but to crave as an offering 
" a broken and a contrite heart." The sacrifices of 
the ritual system might avail to take away the pain 
of self-reproach for a time, and with reference to par- 
ticular transgressions. But the insufficiency of offer- 
ings of this nature became increasingly evident. At 
last the essential idea of sacrifice was realized and 
exhibited by him who could say of himself, " Lo, 
I am come to do thy will " (Heb. x. 9). Here was 
no outward gift, but himself — his own life — that 
was brought, in a willing surrender, to the Father. 
Here was the climax of self-denial, or devotion to the 
Father's will and appointment. The self-surrender 
of the Christian, even of his body, to God, the dedi- 
cation of himself to God, is styled by the Apostle 
Paul our " reasonable," or spiritual, " service," in con- 
trast with the external and visible sacrifices of the 
old ritual (Rom. xii. 1). 

Another illustration still is presented in the Messi- 
anic idea, as that idea is gradually unfolded and by 
degrees transfigured in the Old Testament, and car- 
ried to perfection in the New. Messianic prophecy 
passes forward from its immature, germinant state 
in the earlier times, until it appears in the lofty and 
spiritual forms in which it blossoms out in later ages. 
The Old Testament community was itself prophetic. 
Everything in it pointed to the future. The very fact 



72 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

that God had entered into a direct relation to this 
one people carried in it the promise of victory and 
universality. But what should be the characteristic 
features of the coming day, — this was a matter on 
which light must be shed gradually. Only as the 
community grew and advanced could it be taught to 
comprehend itself and forecast the future. A pro- 
gress or growth of prophecy was therefore a neces- 
sary incident. Even inspired men could never be 
transported to a distant age. There were always 
limits in the prophetic anticipation, colors in the 
picture caught from the scenery and atmosphere in 
the midst of which the prophet lived and wrote. In 
the blessing of Jacob, in his saying that the sceptre 
should not depart from Judah ; in those exultant 
prophecies of the dominion that would be gained by 
the kingdom of David and his successors, which we 
meet with in the Psalms ; in the foresight, granted 
to the great prophets of Israel, of an approaching 
era of universal righteousness and peace ; in Isaiah's 
portrait, in his fifty-fifth chapter, of the suffering 
servant of Jehovah, — we find different phases of 
Messianic prediction. In that chapter of the " evan- 
gelical prophet " the anticipation comes nearest to 
the ideal in certain essential features. But for the 
ideal purified from all imperfections of time and 
place and finite apprehension, we must look to the 
character of the Messiah himself, and to the work 
actually achieved by him. 

When we leave theology for the domain of ethics, 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 73 

the progressive character of Revelation is capable of 
abundant illustration. The Sermon on the Mount 
has for its theme that fulfilment of law, that unfold- 
ing of its inner aim and essence, which Christ de- 
clared to be one end of his mission. Morality is 
followed down to its roots in the inmost dispositions 
of the heart. The precepts of Jesus are a protest 
against the Pharisaical glosses which tradition had 
attached to Old Testament injunctions. It is "the 
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees " which is 
pointedly condemned. It is still an unsettled ques- 
tion, however, whether the reference to what had 
been said by or to " them of old time " was intended 
to include Old Testament legislation itself, as well as 
the perverse, arbitrary interpretations which had been 
attached to it by its theological expounders. Plainly 
the injunction of Jesus to love the enemy as well as 
the neighbor, goes beyond the directions in Leviticus 
(xix. 17, 18) : " Thou shalt not hate thy brother in 
thine heart. . . . Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor 
bear any grudge against the children of thy people, 
but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Here 
nothing is said of any except the " neighbor." The 
prohibition is limited to the treatment of national 
kinsmen. That the general obligation to the exercise 
of good-will towards wrong-doers and foes, wherever 
they may be, and to the cultivation of a forgiving 
temper towards all men, finds in the Gospel an un- 
precedented expansion and emphasis, is evident to all 
readers of the New Testament. A supplication for 



74 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the pardon of enemies forms a part of the Lord's 
Prayer. The hope of personal forgiveness is denied 
to those who are themselves unforgiving. The ex- 
ample of Jesus, and the pardon offered to the most 
unworthy through him, are a new and potent incen- 
tive to the exercise of a forgiving temper. 

A glance at the ideals of ethical worth in the early 
ages of Israel is enough to show how sharply they 
contrast with the laws of Christ and the type of 
character required and exemplified in the New Testa- 
ment. It was once said by an eminent divine that 
the patriarchs, were they living now, would be in the 
penitentiary. Polygamy and other practices, the right- 
fulness of which nobody then disputed, the wrongful- 
ness of which nobody then discerned, are related of 
them, and related without any expression of disap- 
proval. Whoever has not learned that practical mo- 
rality, the ramifications of a righteous principle in 
conduct, is a gradual growth, and that even now, 
after the generic principles of duty have been set 
forth in the Gospel, and a luminous example of the 
spirit in which one should live has been afforded in 
the life of Jesus, the perception of the demands of 
morality advances from stage to stage of progress, is 
incompetent to take the seat of judgment upon men 
of remote ages. Not long ago a letter of Washington 
was published, in which directions are given for the 
transportation to the West Indies and sale there of a 
refractory negro who had given him trouble. The 
act was not at variance with the best morality of the 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 75 

time. The letter is one that deserves to cast no shade 
on the spotless reputation of its author. Yet a like 
act, if done to-day, would excite almost universal 
reprobation. To revile the worthies of Old Testa- 
ment times as if they lacked the vital principle of 
unselfish loyalty to God and to right, as they under- 
stood it, is not less irrational than to deride the 
habitations which they constructed, or the farming- 
tools which they used to till the ground. It is not 
the less imperatively required of us, however, to 
recognize the wide interval that separates the ancient 
conceptions of morality from those of the Gospel. 
Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, entered heart and 
soul into the cause of Israel in the mortal struggle 
with the Canaanites. In lending aid to the cause 
which she espoused she did an act of atrocious cru- 
elty and treachery. She enticed Sisera into her tent, 
and when he was sleeping, drove a tent-pin through 
his head. Yet for her deed she is lauded in the 
song of Deborah the prophetess ( Judges v.), " Blessed 
above women shall Jael be, the wife of Heber the 
Kenite ! " Almost the same words were addressed 
to the Virgin Mary (Luke i. 42), " Blessed art thou 
among women ! " What an infinite contrast be- 
tween the two women to whom this lofty distinction 
is awarded ! Nothing is better fitted to force on us 
the perception of the gradualness and the continuity 
of Revelation. 

We meet in the Psalms with imprecations which 
are not consonant with the spirit of the Gospel ; 



76 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

they belong on a lower plane of ethical feeling. It 
is one thing to experience a satisfaction in the just 
punishment of crime. It is accordant with Christi- 
anity to regard with conscientious abhorrence ini- 
quity, whether we ourselves or other men are the 
sufferers by it. Indifference to base conduct, be the 
root of this state of mind a dulness of the moral 
sense or false sentiment, is, to say the least, not less 
repulsive, and may be more demoralizing, than the 
fires of resentment which nothing but fierce retalia- 
tion can quench. But the spirit of revenge is unchris- 
tian. Christianity teaches us to distinguish between 
the offence and the offender : the one we are to hate ; 
the other we are forbidden to hate. Moreover, Chris- 
tianity never loses sight of the possibility of refor- 
mation in the case of wrong-doers. The Christian 
considers what an individual might be, not merely 
what he now is. The benevolent feeling, therefore, 
is not allowed to be paralyzed by the moral hatred 
which evil conduct naturally and properly evokes. 
As regards personal resentment, the Christian dis- 
ciple is cautioned never to forget his own ill desert 
and need of pardon from God, and the great boon of 
forgiveness, in the reception of which the Christian 
life begins. These qualifications and correctives of 
passion were comparatively wanting in the earlier 
dispensation. 

Many expressions of wrath in the Old Testament 
are directed against the enemies of God and of his 
kingdom, by whom Israel was attacked or threatened. 






THE GRADUALNESS OF REYELATIOX. 77 

They are outbursts of a righteous indignation, and 
as such merit respect, even though an alloy of per- 
sonal vindictiveness may unhappily mingle in them. 
It was no fault to be incensed against impious and 
cruel assailants of all that was precious to a patriot 
and to a reverent worshipper of Jehovah. It is im- 
possible, however, to refer all the imprecations in 
the Psalms to a feeling of the authors in relation 
to such enemies of God and of his kingdom. No 
devices of interpretation can harmonize with the 
precepts of Christ such expressions as are found in 
the 109th Psalm : " Let his children be fatherless, 
and his wife a widow. Let his children be vaga- 
bonds, and beg. . . . Let the extortioner catch all 
that he hath. . . . Let there be none to extend 
mercy unto him : neither let there be any to have 
pity on his fatherless children." The wrath of the 
author of this lyric against the cruel and insolent one 
who " persecuted the poor and needy man, and the 
broken in heart, to slay them," it is fair to assume 
was merited. The sense of justice and the holy anger 
at the root of these anathemas are in themselves 
right. They are the result of a divine education. 
But they take the form of revenge, — a kind of wild 
justice, as Lord Bacon calls it. The identification of 
the family with its head is one of " the ruling ideas " 
of antiquity. It appears often in the methods of 
retribution which were in vogue in the Old Testament 
ages. It gave way partly and by degrees, under that 
progressive enlightenment from above through which 



78 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

individual responsibility became more distinctly felt 
and acknowledged, both in judicial proceedings and 
in private life. The distinctive spirit of the Gospel 
is shown in the rebuke of Jesus when the Disciples 
proposed to call down fire from heaven to destroy 
the inimical Samaritans (Luke ix. 55). It is most 
impressively seen in his prayer on the cross, "Father, 
forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 
xxiii. 34). 

It is the characteristic of Old Testament laws and 
precepts that in them bounds are set to evils, the 
attempt immediately to extirpate which would have 
proved abortive. Something more than this must be 
said. There was lacking a full perception of the moral 
ideal. In the Old Testament expositions of duty, as 
we have already seen, there is an approach towards 
that radical treatment of moral evils which signalizes 
the Christian system. An additional example of this 
feature of the preparatory stage of revelation may be 
found in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs. 
There " Lemuel," the name of a king, or a name ap- 
plied to one of the kings, is apostrophized. He is 
exhorted to practise chastity and temperance. " It is 
not for kings, Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink 
wine ; nor for princes strong drink : lest they drink, 
and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any 
of the afflicted." What better counsel could be given? 
The judge on the bench must have a clear head. But 
the counsellor, in order to strengthen his admonition, 
proceeds to say : " Give strong drink unto him that 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 79 

is ready to perish." So far also, there is no exception 
to be taken to the wisdom of his precept. The Jews 
had a custom, resting on a humane motive, to admin- 
ister a sustaining stimulant or a narcotic to those 
undergoing punishment, in order to alleviate their 
pains. Something of this kind was offered to Jesus 
on the cross. But the counsellor does not stop at this 
point. He says : " Give strong drink unto him that 
is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of 
heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, 
and remember his misery no more." There need be 
no hesitancy in saying that this last exhortation is 
about the worst advice that could possibly be given 
to a person in affliction, or dispirited by the loss of 
property. The thing to tell him, especially if he has 
an appetite for strong drink, is to avoid it as he would 
shun poison. Yet our remark amounts to nothing 
more than this, that the sacred author sets up a 
barrier against only a part of the mischief which is 
wrought by intemperance. His vision went thus far, 
but no farther. It is a case where, to quote a homely 
modern proverb, " Half a loaf is better than no 
bread." It would be a great gain for morality and 
for the well-being of society if magistrates could be 
made abstinent. 

On this general subject there is no more explicit 
criticism of Old Testament law than is contained in 
the words of Jesus respecting divorce. The law of 
Moses permitted a husband to discard his wife, but 
curtailed his privilege by requiring him to furnish her 



80 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

with a written statement which might serve as a 
means of protection for her. This statute, as far as 
the allowance to the man which was included in it 
is concerned, is declared by Christ to have been 
framed on account of " the hardness of heart " of the 
people. It fell below the requirement of immutable 
morality. It was a partial toleration of an abuse 
which it was then impracticable to seek to cut off 
altogether. But Christianity lifted the whole subject 
to a higher level. It presented a profounder view of 
the marriage relation. It superseded and annulled 
the Mosaic enactment. 

The advance of the New Testament revelation in its 
relation to the Old has become, in these days, obvious. 
But the New Testament revelation, in itself con- 
sidered, was not made in an instant as by a lightning- 
flash. It did not come into being in all its fulness in 
a moment, as the fabled Minerva sprung from the 
head of Jove. As in the case of the earlier revelation, 
the note of gradualness is attached to it. The funda- 
mental fact of Christianity is the uniting of God to 
man in the person of Jesus Christ. Peter's confes- 
sion respecting his person is the rock on which the 
Church was founded. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
opens with the following striking passage (as given in 
the Revised Version) : " God, having of old time 
spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers por- 
tions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these 
days spoken unto us in his Son." The former revela- 
tions were made through various channels, and were 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 81 

besides of a fragmentary character. They paved the 
way for the final revelation through the Son, whom 
the writer proceeds to liken, in his relation to God, 
to the effulgence of a luminous body. But modern 
exegesis and modern theological thought, while leav- 
ing untouched the divinity of Jesus, and even, for 
substance, the Nicene definitions of it, have brought 
into clear light that progressive development of the 
Saviour's person of which the incarnation was the 
starting-point. Not until his earthly career termi- 
nated and he was " glorified " was the union of God 
and man in his person in its effects consummated. 
More was involved in his being in the " form of a ser- 
vant " than theology in former days conceived. Noth- 
ing is more clear from his own language respecting 
himself, as well as from what the Apostles say of 
him, than that there were limitations of his know- 
ledge. On a certain day Jesus started from Bethany 
for Jerusalem. He was hungry. Seeing at a distance 
a fig-tree with leaves upon it, he went towards it, ex- 
pecting to find fruit, — it being a tree of that kind 
which produces its fruit before putting out the leaves. 
But when he came to it his expectation was deceived ; 
" he found nothing but leaves.'' Jesus said that he 
did not know when the day of judgment would come. 
Apart from conclusive testimonies of this character, it 
is evident from the whole tenor of the Gospel histo- 
ries that he was not conscious of the power to exer- 
cise divine attributes in their fulness of activity. 
The opposite idea gives a mechanical character to his 



82 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

actions and to most of his teachings. How, if he was 
all the while in the exercise of omniscience, could he 
" marvel " at the unbelief of certain of his hearers ? 
That when he was a speechless babe in his mother's 
arms he was consciously possessed of infinite know- 
ledge, is an impossible conception. And the difficul- 
ties of such a conception are only lessened in degree 
at any other subsequent day while he was " in the 
flesh." When we behold him at the last, prior to the 
crucifixion, we find his soul poured out in the ago- 
nizing supplication, " If it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me." The supposition of a dual personality 
in Christ is not less contrary to the Scriptures and to 
the creed of the Church than it is offensive to com- 
mon-sense and to philosophy. Yet he was conscious 
of his divine nature and origin, and the unfolding 
within him of this unassailable conviction kept pace 
with the development of his human consciousness. 
The dawning sense of the unique relation in which he 
stood to God comes out in his boyhood, in the words 
addressed to his mother when he was found with the 
doctors in the temple, " Wist ye not that I must be in 
my Father's house ? " And the limitations of Jesus 
must not be exaggerated or made the premise of un- 
warranted inferences. He knew the boundaries of 
his province as a teacher, and never overstepped them. 
Just as he refused to be an arbiter in a contest about 
an inheritance, saying, " Who made me a judge or a 
divider over you ? " so did he abstain from authori- 
tative utterances on matters falling distinctly within 






THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 83 

the sphere of human science. No honor is done to 
him, and no help afforded to the cause of Christianity, 
in attributing to him scholastic information which he 
did not claim for himself, and which there is no evi- 
dence that he possessed. It is not less important, 
however, to observe that, notwithstanding the limits 
that were set about him by the fact of his real human- 
ity, and as long as he dwelt among men, there was 
yet an inlet into his consciousness from the fountain 
of all truth. " No one knoweth the Son, save the 
Father ; neither doth any know the Father, save the 
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal 
him" (Matt. xi. 27). His knowledge differed in its 
source, in its kind and degree, from that of all other 
sons of men. " The words that I say unto you I speak 
not from myself : but the Father abiding in me doeth 
his works." The divine in him was not a temporary 
visitation, as when the Spirit dwelt for a brief time — 
sojourned, one may be permitted to say — in the soul 
of a prophet like Isaiah. Even then God spoke 
through the prophet, and the mind of the prophet 
might for the moment become so fully the organ of 
God that he spoke through the prophet's lips in the 
first person. But in Christ there was an "abiding" 
of the Father. The union was such that the whole 
mental and moral life of Jesus was an expression of 
God's mind and will. " He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father." As conscience in me is the voice 
of another, yet is not distinct from my own being, so 
of Christ is it true that the Father was in him, — an- 



84 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

other, yet not another. And this union, although 
real from the beginning, culminated in its effects not 
until a complete ethical oneness was attained, at the 
end of all temptation and suffering, — the oneness 
which found utterance in the words, u Howbeit not 
what I will, but what thou wilt." This was the transi- 
tion-point to the perfect development of his being, 
which is styled his " glorification." As the risen and 
ascended Christ, he can be touched with sympathy with 
the human infirmities of which he has had experi- 
ence, at the same time that he can be present with his 
disciples wherever they are, — can be in the midst of 
the smallest group of them who are met for worship. 

From Jesus himself we have a distinct assurance 
that the revelation which he was to make was not to 
end with his oral teaching. Near the end of his life 
he said to the Disciples, " I have yet many things to 
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." They 
were not ripe for the comprehension of important 
truth, which therefore he held in reserve. The Holy 
Spirit was to open their eyes to the perception of 
things which they were not yet qualified to appreciate. 
The communication of the Spirit ushered in a new 
epoch. Then the Apostles took a wider and deeper 
view of the purport of the Gospel. We find in the 
Epistles an unfolding of doctrine which we discover 
in the germ in the conversations and discourses of 
Jesus. It was impossible, for example, that the de- 
sign of his death could be discerned prior to the event 
itself, and as long as the disciples could not be recon- 



THE GRADUALNESS OF REVELATION. 85 

ciled even to the expectation of it. In isolated say- 
ings of Jesus, in particular in what he said at the 
institution of the Lord's Supper, the atonement is 
taught. The giving of his life, he said on another 
occasion, was to avail, in some way, as a ransom. 
But it was not until the cross had been raised that 
the doctrine of the cross was made an essential part 
of Christian teaching, and the great sacrifice became 
a theme of doctrinal exposition. By this subsequent 
teaching a void which had been left in the instruc- 
tions of the Master was filled. In his teaching there 
were two elements, standing, so to speak, apart from 
each other. On the one hand, he set forth the inexo- 
rable demands of righteous law. In this respect no 
portion of the older Scriptures, in which law was so 
prominent a theme, is equally adapted to strike the 
conscience with dismay. On the other hand, there 
was in the teaching of Jesus the most emphatic proc- 
lamation of God's compassion and forgiving love. 
These two sides of the Saviour's teaching are con- 
nected and harmonized in the apostolic exposition of 
the atonement. 

The Apostles themselves, individually, as regards 
their perceptions of truth, their insight into the mean- 
ing of the Gospel and its bearings on human duty 
and destiny, did not remain stationary. How they 
attained to a more catholic view of the relation of the 
Gentiles to the Gospel and to the Church, must form 
the subject of a special discussion. Apart from this 
subject, where their progressive enlightenment is so 



86 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

conspicuous a fact, there can be no doubt that from 
day to day they grew in knowledge. If we were in 
possession of earlier writings from the pen of the 
Apostle John, we might expect that marked differences 
would appear between them and the Gospel and the 
First Epistle, which were written when " the Son of 
Thunder" had ripened into the octogenarian apostle of 
love. The Apocalypse, so far as the style of thought 
is concerned, whatever judgment may be formed on 
other grounds, may quite conceivably have been writ- 
ten, two or three decades prior to the date of the Gos- 
pel, by the same author. When the earliest writings 
of Paul, the Epistles to the Thessalonians, are com- 
pared with his latest writings, — with the Pastoral 
Epistles and the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephe- 
sians, — we not only find perceptible modifications of 
tone, but in the later compositions we find also views 
on the scope of the Gospel — what may be termed 
the universal, or cosmical, relations of the work of 
redemption — such as do not appear in his first pro- 
ductions. As a minor peculiarity, it may be men- 
tioned that when he wrote to the Thessalonians he 
seems to have expected to be alive when the Lord 
should come in his Second Advent ; while in his latest 
Epistles this hope or expectation has passed out of his 
mind. As the Gospel and the First Epistle of John 
are the latest of the Apostolic writings, it is permis- 
sible to regard them as the fullest and ripest state- 
ment of the theologic import of the Gospel. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DIFFERENTIATING OF CHRISTIANITY FROM JUDAISM. 

How the ties which at the outset held Christianity 
and Christian believers within the pale of the Jewish 
religion, with no thought of breaking away from its 
appointed ordinances and rites, came to be completely 
dissolved, forms a highly interesting chapter in early 
Christian history. The leading agent, the man spe- 
cially chosen of Providence to introduce this new stage 
of development, was a converted Pharisee, Saul of 
Tarsus. A remarkable characteristic of the revolu- 
tion — or evolution, if one prefers so to call it — is 
the circumstance that there neither lurked in it nor 
ensued from it any antipathy to the Old Testament 
religion. It involved no discarding of the ancient 
Scriptures in which the revelation to the Jews was 
recorded. Moses and the prophets continued to be 
reverenced as divinely commissioned teachers. The 
Old Testament continued to be the Bible of the Chris- 
tian churches. Up to the time of the composition 
and collection of the Apostolic writings they had no 
other Bible. It was read in their Sunday assemblies. 
The God whom Christians worshipped was the God of 
the patriarchs, the same who had " spoken unto the 



88 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

fathers in the prophets." The religion of the Gospel 
assumed no antagonistic relation to the religion of 
the Old Testament. Yet it came to pass that the 
Old Testament ritual was dropped. The title of the 
Jews to peculiar and exclusive privileges in the com- 
munity of Christian believers was set aside. The de- 
mand that the Christian believer should come into the 
Church through the door of Judaism, by conforming 
to the rites ordained for heathen proselytes, was no 
longer made. Christianity was, and was perceived 
to be, one thing, and Judaism another; and soon 
there was a wide gulf between them. At the begin- 
ning we find the Disciples continuing " steadfastly 
with one accord in the temple," although they met 
also by themselves for social worship (Acts ii. 46, 
Revised Version). If they were, in a sense, to borrow 
a phrase now current, " church-goers," they were like- 
wise " temple-goers." They were like other Jews ; 
only they believed that the Messiah had come, and 
although he had been rejected and crucified, they 
looked for his second appearing in power and splen- 
dor. The daily devotions, the solemn festivals, the 
smoking altars of the Jewish system were as dear 
and sacred to them as they had ever been. The con- 
verts were to be baptized, but baptism did not super- 
sede the necessity of circumcision for admission into 
the Judaic-Christian fraternity. But pass over a few 
decades of years, and we discover that this conformity 
to the old system has vanished. Numerous Christian 
churches are planted in which the Mosaic ceremonies 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 89 

are not practised. In process of time the revolution 
is complete. The synagogue is no more a place of 
resort for Christians. Their fellowship, such as it 
was, with disbelieving Jews, who formed the bulk of 
the Jewish people, is broken off. The rupture is 
absolute. The opposition is mutual. The Jews pur- 
sue the Christians with bitter maledictions. The 
Christians are of one mind in discerning that the old 
ritual with its burdensome yoke of ordinances is obso- 
lete. They no longer tolerate the observances which 
at first they expected all of their number to practise. 

This revolution was the consequence of no injunc- 
tion of Jesus. He himself kept the law in its cere- 
monial as well as in its moral parts, notwithstanding 
that he protested against the over-rigid interpretations 
of the Pharisaic school. He distinguished between 
the laws themselves and the " traditions of the elders," 
— the glosses and additions which the doctors had 
affixed to the Old Testament legislation, under the 
pretext of expounding it or of applying it to unfore- 
seen cases. He denounced the pernicious casuistry 
which brought in now an evasion of moral duties, 
and now an imposition of ceremonial performances 
which the spirit of the law did not exact. He taught 
that the value of institutions consisted in their use- 
fulness. They were not an end in themselves, but a 
means for attaining a good beyond them. Rules were 
not framed for their own sake. Even the Sabbath 
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 
While Jesus encouraged no revolt against the ritual 



90 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

system, while he even enjoined conformity to it ac- 
cording to its proper meaning, and himself set an 
example of such conformity, the spirit of his teaching 
and the work done by him undermined it. They 
could not fail to lead to the discontinuance of the 
Jewish cultus. Eventually it would be seen to have 
no longer a raison d'etre. It would come to be felt 
to be as needless a burden as winter garments in the 
mild air of summer. The time must arrive when the 
Jewish system would be consciously outgrown. To 
keep it up would then be like the attempt of an adult 
to wear the clothes of a child. Jesus did not decree 
the subversion of the Jewish cultus, — that ancient 
fabric which had sheltered religious faith in the days 
of its immaturity, when the community of God was 
waiting for a full disclosure of his purpose of mercy 
and of deliverance for the race. He did not by one 
sudden stroke demolish that system, but he put gun- 
powder under it. And yet this is not an apposite 
simile. We should rather say that he prepared the 
way for the gradual, intelligent abandonment of it. 
There might be temporary confusion and even occa- 
sional contests ; but on the whole the change was to 
be in a true sense natural, like the melting of the 
winter snows and the coming out of the leaves and 
blossoms under the increasing warmth of the vernal 
sun. Jesus taught that religion is spiritual. He 
showed, as the prophets before him had proclaimed, 
how empty is a round of observances into which the 
heart does not enter, and which are not accompanied 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 91 

by righteousness of conduct. " Mercy is better than 
sacrifice." He said of one that he was not far from 
the kingdom of God because he discerned that the 
love of God and man " is more than all whole burnt- 
offerings and sacrifices." The illustrations in the 
Sermon on the Mount of that fulfilment of the law 
which he came to secure, all relate to moral tempers 
and moral conduct. He taught the infinite worth of 
the soul, the impartial benevolence of God, and that 
love is the substance of the law. His teaching was 
void of sympathy with Judaic exclusiveness. That 
the institutions of the Gospel could not be identical 
with those of the old system, he taught when, in 
answer to the question why his disciples did not fast, 
he said that " new wine must not be put into old 
bottles." He said that not what goeth into the mouth 
defileth a man. This he declared, the Evangelist 
adds, " making all meats clean." He laid down the 
principle that defilement is from the heart alone, from 
bad feelings and motives, — a principle which cut the 
ground from under the ritual as far as it related to 
meats and drinks. Jesus implied that he was con- 
scious of an authority higher than that which pre- 
scribed the laws of the Old Testament, when he 
superseded the Mosaic precept concerning divorce 
(Matt. xix. 8, Mark x. 5) ; when he declared the Son 
of man to be " the Lord of the Sabbath " (Mark ii. 28, 
Luke vi. 5) ; when he affirmed that he and his Disci- 
ples were not under an obligation to pay the tax to 
the temple (Matt. xvii. 24-27). " In this place," he 



92 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

said, " is one greater than the temple." The priests, 
it had been understood, were absolved from the strict 
observance of the sabbatical law. They might on any 
day offer their sacrifices ; they might " profane the 
Sabbath " without guilt. The thought was not so 
remote that he who was greater than the temple 
might supersede the temple. To the woman of Sa- 
maria he said that worship was confined to no local 
sanctuary (John iv. 23, 24). There were predictions 
of a downfall of the temple, of the letting out of the 
vineyard to other husbandmen (Matt. xxiv. 2, Mark 
xiii. 2, Luke xxi. 6, John ii. 19, Matt. xxi. 41, Mark 
xii. 9). Then he made everything turn on the rela- 
tion of men to himself. The test of character was 
belief or disbelief in him. The one condition and 
source of communion with God was personal commu- 
nion with him whom God had sent. When this last 
truth should be fully apprehended, what space would 
be left for any other priesthood or sacrifice ? At the 
Last Supper he so connected his death with the for- 
giveness of sins as virtually to dispense with the need 
of any other offering or intercession than his own. 
In fine, the large and spiritual view of the nature of 
religion which Christ presented, together with the 
sufficiency which he ascribed to his own work as a 
reconciler, made the cultus of the Hebrews, including 
the national rite of circumcision, superfluous. But 
how should the free and catholic spirit of the Gospel 
come to be recognized ? How should the fetters of 
custom, and ingrained reverence, and national self- 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 93 

esteem — the claim on the part of the Jews to prece- 
dence and to some kind of perpetual sway in the 
concerns of religion — be broken ? For so great a 
change time was required. In matters where feeling 
is strongly enlisted, where lifelong prejudices are to 
be overcome, where usages are closely linked, from 
long association, with devotional sentiment, there is 
often between the premises and the legitimate conclu- 
sion a long road to travel. 

The purport of the Gospel in the particulars to 
which I have referred was discerned by the Apostle 
Paul at an early date, and it was more clearly and 
vividly perceived by him than by any other. Whether 
Paul had in his hands written accounts of the teach- 
ing of Jesus, we are not informed. For what he says 
of the institution of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. xi. 23 
seq.) he had in some way the direct authority of the 
Lord. He refers it to a direct revelation ; for so we 
must interpret his language. On the contrary, what 
he says of the appearances of Jesus to the other Apos- 
tles after his resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 1 seq.) he had 
ascertained from them. We cannot be mistaken in 
supposing that Paul was acquainted with teachings 
of Christ which, in his judgment, contained an im- 
plicit warrant for that broad interpretation of the 
Gospel and of the privilege of the Gentiles under 
it which he adopted, — such teaching of Jesus as we 
have cited above from the Evangelists. In his inter- 
course with the other Apostles — it is important to 
remember that Paul spent a fortnight with Peter — 



94 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

he had the best opportunity to rectify any mistake, 
if he had fallen into any mistake, in respect to this 
part of the Saviour's teaching. 

It has been sometimes said that Paul himself pro- 
fesses not to be acquainted with the facts of the min- 
istry of Jesus. This strange statement is founded on 
a misunderstanding of his meaning when he says that 
he did not receive the Gospel from men, but " through 
revelation of Jesus Christ " (Gal. i. 12). This direct 
relation to Christ, who revealed himself to him and 
called him to be an apostle, does not preclude the 
obtaining of knowledge through secondary sources. 
That he did not care to learn what Christ had taught 
and done during bis earthly life, is something quite 
incredible in a man of his active intelligence and 
Christian feeling. 

That Paul became the leader in the work of eman- 
cipating the Church from Judaism has been some- 
times attributed to the liberalizing influence of culture 
and learning. He was that one of the Apostles, we 
are reminded, whose mind had been expanded by 
study, and whose intellect had been invigorated and 
widened by a scholastic training. But on this subject 
of the education of the Apostle to the Gentiles there 
are prevalent mistakes which require to be corrected. 
One of them is the ascription to him of a familiarity 
with Greek classical writers. This idea is based 
partly on certain utterances of his which correspond 
to sayings of Greek authors. There are three of 
these passages. The first is in the Apostle's speech 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 95 

at Athens : " As certain even of your own poets have 
said, For we are also his offspring " (Acts xvii. 28). 
The quotation is found in Aratus, a poet who belonged 
to Soli, a place near Tarsus, and it occurs also in 
that noblest example of devotional poetry that has 
come down to us from a heathen source, — the Hymn 
of Cleanthes. Both Aratus and Cleanthes belonged 
to the Stoic sect. The second passage of this kind 
is an iambic verse : " Evil company doth corrupt good 
manners " (1 Cor. xv. 33). This has been referred 
to Euripides by many, including John Milton, who 
remarks that " Paul thought it no defilement to 
insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three 
Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian." But 
the passage is traced by scholars at present to the 
" Thais " of Menander. The third of the passages 
traceable to heathen sources is the unflattering de- 
scription given of the Cretans (Titus i. 12) : " Cretans 
are always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons." The 
words form a hexameter, and are from Epimenides, 
a Cretan poet whom Plato styled a " divine man," 
and whom Paul does not scruple to call a " prophet," 
— recognizing in him, as regards this particular say- 
ing at least, a remarkable divination or foresight. 
But probably all these passages were proverbial sa} 7 - 
ings, and as such was caught up by the Apostle from 
the conversation of the day. According to the cor- 
rect reading of the passage from Menander, Paul 
deviates from the metrical form, — - which indicates 
that unless he did not know what the original was, 



96 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

he preferred to give it in the shape in which it passed 
current as a proverb. There is really nothing either 
in the style of Paul's writings or in their contents 
to show that he was versed in the Greek classical 
authors. As to his style, it is unlettered Greek. It 
is not likely that a man of his high intellectual quali- 
ties could have read an author like Plato without dis- 
tinct traces of the fact being evident both in his 
language and in his thoughts. On a mind of an in- 
ferior order a feeble impression might have been left 
by the masters of Greek philosophy, poetry, and elo- 
quence, but not on a mind like that of Paul, in case 
he had been conversant with them. He was born, to 
be sure, in a city where Greek was familiarly spoken, 
— although the inscriptions discovered recently in 
that region do not indicate that the Greek in use 
there was of a choice character. Tarsus was a seat 
of Stoic philosophy. It must be remembered, how- 
ever, that Paul was the son of a Pharisee, that he 
was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and was no doubt 
brought up after the strict method of Pharisaic train- 
ing. Such a father as he had would not have put 
pagan authors into his boy's hands. He had for 
his teacher at Jerusalem the rabbi Gamaliel. The 
advice which, according to Luke, was given by this 
noted rabbi to his fellow-members of the Sanhedrim 
reveals a certain moderation and sagacity. He dis- 
suaded them from using force against the Apostles, 
for the reason that if their cause was right, it could 
not be put down, and the attempt to put it down 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 97 

would be impious ; while if their cause was wrong, 
it would come to nothing all the sooner for being let 
alone. His appeal to the instances of Theudas and 
Judas of Galilee, fanatics who raised a disturbance 
which lasted but a little while, would seem to indi- 
cate that he anticipated a like failure for the new 
enterprise which the Apostles were trying to pro- 
mote. Whether Gamaliel was simply politic, or had 
some genuine tolerance in his temper, may be a ques- 
tion. This we know very well, that his ardent pupil 
did not share in any sentiment of this kind. He was 
an approving spectator of the killing of Stephen. He 
plunged into the work of a heresy-hunter and inquis- 
itor. He seized on the Disciples of Jesus and shut 
them up in prison. He tried in the synagogues to 
force them to recant. He chased them from one 
place to another ; for he was " exceedingly mad 
against them " (Acts xxvi. 11). It is certain, there- 
fore, that Paul had not imbibed any lenient sentiment 
towards dissentients from the standards of ortho- 
doxy ; and it would be irrational to credit him with 
feelings of this kind towards the heathen. His edu- 
cation was rabbinical ; and traces of its peculiar 
character crop out occasionally in his way of argu- 
ing and of illustrating truth, even after he had been 
lifted into the higher atmosphere of the apostolic 
calling. 

Nevertheless, there exist in the writings of Paul 
striking coincidences with Stoic philosophic teaching. 
The correspondences between New Testament pas- 



98 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

sages and Stoic maxims and precepts is a fact that 
calls for explanation. It is more marked in relation 
to Seneca, the Roman Stoic, the preceptor of Nero, 
than in regard to any other of the philosophers of the 
Porch. The similarity in his case extends to numer- 
ous sayings of Jesus as well as to other portions of 
the New Testament. The theory was broached by 
several of the ancient Fathers that Seneca was a 
Christian convert. There appeared a forged corre- 
spondence between him and the Apostle Paul. From 
the time of Jerome it was taken for granted that 
Seneca had been won over by the Apostle to the 
Christian faith. There is nothing to disprove the 
supposition that Seneca gathered up, perhaps from 
slaves of his household, fragments of the teaching of 
Christ and of Paul. Yet it has been observed that 
some of the most striking parallels are with the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, and this epistle was written after 
Seneca's death. The whole basis of Seneca's philo- 
sophical view is utterly at variance with the Christian 
system. This circumstance is fatal to the hypothe- 
sis that he was connected with Paul, as the legend 
represented. 

But how shall we account for the Stoic phraseology 
which is undeniably found in Paul's speeches and 
writings ? The Stoic ideal of the sage painted him 
as lacking nothing, as the possessor of all things, as 
alone free, as alone happy, as alone rich, as the true 
wise man, the true priest, the true king. In similar 
terms the Apostle delineates the Christian believer. 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 99 

We seem to be hearing echoes of Stoic sayings. The 
Stoic system was cosmopolitan in its character. The 
kinship of mankind, that the Stoic is a citizen of the 
world, a denizen of all lands, are frequent affirmations 
of Seneca, of Epietetus, and of the imperial philoso- 
pher Marcus Aurelius. This universality of fellow- 
ship the Apostle affirms of the Christian believer. In 
it the boundaries of race and nationality are effaced. 
Such ideas in Paul are presented in an original, en- 
tirely different setting. There is a groundwork for 
them in Christ and his kingdom which was wanting 
to the Stoic, with whom these lofty distinctions could 
have but little more than a negative import and value. 
However, the verbal resemblance remains. This is 
best accounted for by the intercourse into which the 
Apostle was brought with Stoics both at Tarsus, 
where he dwelt for a considerable time after his con- 
version, and in other cities which he visited. At 
Athens, as we are told, he disputed with Stoics and 
Epicureans. These were the popular philosophical 
sects at that time. With the Epicurean tenets he 
could find few points of contact. But in the ethical 
ideas and maxims of the Stoics, although they rested 
on no basis of fundamental truth that was satisfac- 
tory, and although the Stoic ideal for this reason 
could not be realized, the Apostle discerned features 
which he, from his higher point of view, could appro- 
priate. He could take them up and infuse into them 
both a significance and a worth which they had not 
before possessed. The relation of Paul to certain 



100 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

Stoic terms and phrases was somewhat like that of 
the Apostle John to the term Logos, or Word, and 
possibly to some other phrases in his writings. Terms 
in current use in the discussions of the day John 
could take up and transfigure, as it were, so that they 
became a fit vehicle for expressing the higher truth 
which was derived, not from any philosophical source, 
but from revelation and from the direct impression 
made by Jesus upon the susceptible spirit of his 
disciple. 

The reason, certainly the main reason, for the ex- 
ceptional liberality of Paul, for his complete emanci- 
pation from Judaic prejudice, is not to be found either 
in his learning or in his marked perspicacity. His 
mind was no doubt disciplined and made capable, 
above most others, of looking into a question to its 
very core. He had no need of an acquaintance with 
Aristotle in order to grasp a doctrine in its logical 
relations and to carry it out to the legitimate infer- 
ences. And he had a superiority in knowledge, — 
not merely in that sort of knowledge which an eager 
scholar of the rabbis would of course acquire. He 
had a store of knowledge, constantly increasing, drawn 
from observation and from contact with adherents of 
differing schools of opinion in the places where he 
sojourned. But the secret of his catholicity, as we 
have seen, is not to be found either in his talents or 
in his culture. To discover that secret we must turn 
to the history of his conversion. Great as the trans- 
formation was at that crisis, yet in important respects 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 101 

he was the same man after as before. If we look 
at him first on the day when he was on the road 
to Damascus, armed with credentials from the high 
priest, and then look at him again when he was 
on one of his great missionary journeys, we behold 
the same energy, the same aggressive, conquering 
force. He was a crusader from first to last. No 
revolution of motive or of moral temper could be 
greater. He had become humane, loving, willing to 
give up his life, and even his own salvation, for the 
sake of the Jewish countrymen who detested him 
as an apostate. And the end in view — how differ- 
ent ! Then he was bent on exterminating those whom 
now he regards with an almost motherly tenderness. 
Then it was to extirpate a faith which now he cher- 
ishes, and for which he is ready to be offered up ! 
Nevertheless, the natural qualities of the man, the 
qualities that made him a leader and, when conse- 
crated to the service of the Gospel, a Christian hero, 
were his in the first as well as the last of the eras 
into which his life was divided, and between which 
seemingly a great gulf was fixed. There is one other 
element of resemblance, or thread of continuity, of 
more consequence still. His ideal from the beginning 
to the end of his career was righteousness. To stand 
right before God, acquitted, with no accusation lying 
against him at the bar of the Judge and in the forum 
of conscience, was always to his mind the one inesti- 
mable good. He attached the same value to it after 
his conversion as before, the same before as after. 



102 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

As to what is involved in being righteous, and how 
righteousness can be attained, these were points on 
which there was a world-wide difference between the 
earlier and the later conception. But the aim in its 
generic character was unaltered. 

In the attempt to explain the conversion of Paul in 
such a way as to eliminate the miraculous elements 
in the event, a naturalistic solution has been sug- 
gested. The persecutor, it is said, was probably 
haunted with misgivings in reference to the course 
that he was pursuing. He had heard of the moral 
excellence of Jesus, perhaps he had seen him. He 
had been touched by the forgiving, heavenly spirit 
of the dying Stephen. The meek demeanor of the 
harassed Disciples was not without its influence. In 
short, there was a conflict arising in his mind ; there 
was inward anxiety, amounting to self-reproach. Here, 
it is urged, was a state of feeling which might give 
rise to hallucination, — to the imaginary vision of 
Jesus. Augustine, sitting in tears under a, fig-tree, 
overwhelmed with contrition, heard, or imagined that 
he heard, in a neighboring house a voice, as of a boy 
or • girl, " chanting and oft repeating " the words, 
" Take up and read ; take up and read." He took 
the Bible and opened at the passage, " Not in rioting 
and drunkenness," etc. (Rom. xiii. 13, 14). One 
trouble with the theory of hallucination in the case 
of Paul is, that not only is there no evidence that 
he felt any such disquiet as the theory presupposes, 
in regard to the rectitude of the errand on which he 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 103 

was bent, but there is decisive evidence that he did 
not. The phrase " It is hard for thee to kick against 
the pricks " means nothing more or less than that 
he was engaged in a futile enterprise. It has no 
reference to any feeling of compunction. He was 
like an animal kicking against the goad, — that is to 
say, his undertaking against the Christian faith was a 
hopeless one. But he says : " I verily thought with 
myself that I ought to do many things contrary to 
the name of Jesus of Nazareth " (Acts xxvi. 9) ; "I 
obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbe- 
lief " (1 Tim. i. 13). There was no insincerity, no in- 
ward halting, no doubt as to whether Jesus might not 
after all be the Messiah. There was no psychological 
state of the kind which would pave the way for an 
illusive vision of Jesus. If any are sceptical as to 
the accuracy of the Acts in this particular, or as 
to the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, yet in 
Epistles, the genuineness of which is beyond dispute, 
the Apostle attributes his conversion exclusively to 
the grace of God and an act of revelation (Gal. i. 12, 
16). " While," writes Weiss, " he constantly accuses 
himself of persecuting the Church, as being the great- 
est sin of his life, he never intimates that he strug- 
gled long against better knowledge and conscience, in 
opposition to the testimony of the truth." He never 
ascribes the revolution in his convictions, which was 
accomplished at a single stroke, to proofs appealing 
to his understanding, but always to facts accepted in 
faith, " on the believing acceptance of which his peace 



104 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of soul and his eternal salvation depend." Hence 
if it was a vision that produced the change, it was a 
real vision, and no product of illusion. It was a vision 
that convinced him not only that Christ continued to 
live, but that he had risen in bodily form ; so that if 
this was an error, " it was God himself, by causing 
this vision, who led him into the error." This percep- 
tion of Christ, while he was on the way to Damascus, 
stands apart from other visions, of which he did not 
care to speak. On it he rested as the guarantee of his 
apostolic office (1 Cor. ix. 1). There was included in 
it not only his commission to be an Apostle, but more 
specifically, to be an Apostle to the heathen. 

The sight of Jesus in the glorified state swept away 
the " stumbling-block " which was contained in the 
idea of a crucified Messiah, and served to demon- 
strate the fact of his resurrection. But into the con- 
version of Paul there entered something more than 
the giving up of disbelief in the divine mission of 
Jesus. That, in itself considered, might not have 
carried with it any great spiritual change. In the 
seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans the veil 
is drawn aside, and we have glimpses of the course 
of his inner life. Without doubt he speaks of his own 
personal experience, although he speaks as in this 
matter consciously the representative of human na- 
ture. He shows how the attempt to get inward peace 
by the method of law had collapsed. The seeking for 
righteousness on this path had brought him to utter 
despair, to a sense of helplessness. At the outset, 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 105 

as we may suppose, in his younger days, he was 
" alive." His natural feelings and desires were in 
full activity, with no painful consciousness of wrong. 
But " the law came." There came a time when the 
holy ideal of duty to God and man rose before him 
in the rigor of its perfection. Then he " died." His 
peace of mind was gone. The conflict between the 
desires on the one side and the restraints of law on 
the other produced a schism in the soul. A distress- 
ing battle raged within, in which the better nature 
was felt to be powerless, felt to be a slave panting for 
liberty, but struggling in vain to free itself. To what 
extent this feeling of condemnation and of bondage 
was experienced by him when he was on the way to 
Damascus, — whether this consciousness of guilt and 
of weakness was not greatly intensified in the days 
that immediately followed, — he does not tell us, 
and we have no means of knowing. But this moral 
conflict it was that prepared him to welcome the gos- 
pel of deliverance. There was a better way to attain 
to righteousness ; namely, a free pardon from God, 
and a new life in the spirit, — a heart-fellowship, 
a grateful feeling, a filial relation which made obe- 
dience easy. He learned by experience that a legal 
system had in it no life-giving power. It could only 
condemn. It could only make one aware of his need 
of help from some other quarter. When it had done 
this work, it had fulfilled its office, and was superseded 
by those forces of spiritual aid and healing which are 
contained in the gospel of grace. 



106 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

Now what must be the effect of this experience on 
Paul's view of the Old Testament legal system, in- 
cluding the ceremonial features ? He could look on 
that system only as something preparatory and pro- 
visional. It was like the ancient pedagogue, whose 
business it was to lead boys to school and leave them 
there. Law and grace, the old dispensation and the 
new, appeared to him in the sharpest contrast. In 
his philosophy of religion, ceremonial prescriptions, 
as means of salvation, were " beggarly elements ; " 
that is, rudiments which had had their day. The 
other Apostles, the original disciples, had not passed 
through a like spiritual crisis. They had been led on, 
step by step, in the company of Jesus, into a full sym- 
pathy with him and trust in him as a Saviour. They 
knew that, believing in him and following him with 
a loyal spirit, they were forgiven and saved. In com- 
mon with Paul, they held with one accord that recon- 
ciliation was through Christ, and that the humility of 
the publican in the parable was the temper of mind 
alone becoming a sinful man. The gradualness of 
their religious progress, the absence of a momentary, 
decisive turning-point, prevented them from seeing at 
once, and from seeing so distinctly, that relation of 
the new to the old, of gospel to law, which Paul's ex- 
perience made as clear to him as sunlight. Their 
minds were open, they were ready to be guided by 
the Spirit, and they were thus guided ; but so far as 
human instrumentality is concerned, it was Paul who 
led the way. 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 107 

What effect on his mind had these new perceptions, 
the outcome of a living experience ? They could have 
no other effect than to level the barriers of race and 
nationality. Where were now the privileges on which 
the Jew plumed himself? Sin was a characteristic 
equally of Jew and Gentile. The same divine law 
which through Moses and the prophets had been re- 
vealed to the Jew had been written on the heart of 
the Gentile. Both rested under the same condemna- 
tion. It was not on the Gentiles exclusively, it was 
on "the world," that the burden of guilt rested. And 
what could circumcision, lustrations, the sacrifice of 
animals, do to deliver any from the double yoke of 
self-accusation and evil habit ? There was only one 
means of deliverance, one remedy for heathen and 
Hebrew alike. It was the Christ, and faith in him. 
Moreover, Paul had seen the Christ on a heavenly 
throne. His kingdom was evidently not a temporal 
one, having its seat in the city of David. Even when 
he should come again, the kingdom was not to have 
this earthly character. The Apostle no longer knew 
Christ " after the flesh," as belonging to one nation, 
and leading here among men a human life. He says, 
" Our citizenship is in heaven " (Phil. iii. 20). There 
Christ is, and there, for this reason, is the centre of 
our polity. There is the seat of authority in the 
commonwealth in which we are citizens. When the 
Lord comes, the " body of our humiliation" — the 
mortal body, borne down by persecution, privation, 
suffering — is to be assimilated to his glorified body, 



108 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

to that heavenly mode of being that belongs to him. 
Paul's conception of the kingdom is changed. His 
idea of it is wholly different from that of those who 
had not shaken off the associations of a political 
theocracy, with Jerusalem for its capital and with 
the temple on Mount Zion for the place of resort for 
all nations. When we consider the birth and edu- 
cation and earlier characteristics of this Pharisee, 
this inquisitor, thirsting for the blood of heretics, how 
astonishing is the declaration, " There is no distinc- 
tion between Jew and Greek " (Rom. x. 12) ! Few 
more remarkable utterances ever fell from human 
lips. Yet the reason which is connected with it ex- 
plains all : " For the same Lord is Lord of all, and 
is rich unto all that call upon him." There was but 
one Lord, and there was not less mercy in his heart 
for the heathen than for the Hebrew. In a religion 
that is spiritual, where there is but one Lord, and 
salvation is a free gift from him, there " cannot be 
Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, bar- 
barian, Scythian, bondman, freeman : but Christ is 
all, and in all." 

We pause for a moment to point out a profoundly 
interesting parallel between Paul's conception of the 
death of Christ as bringing Jew and Gentile together, 
and certain most instructive and pathetic words of 
Jesus. At the last Passover, we read in John's Gos- 
pel, certain " Greeks," — who were not Jews, but 
heathen, probably proselytes of the gate, — who had 
come up to the festival to worship, came to Philip, 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 109 

one of the twelve, and expressed their wish to see 
Jesus (John xii. 20, seq.~). Philip reported this to 
Andrew, and then both carried the request to the 
Master. It is one of those circumstantial accounts 
which in its manner, not to speak of its contents, 
shows the truthfulness of the Gospel narrative. 
When the two Disciples delivered their message, Jesus 
exclaimed : " The hour is come, that the Son of man 
should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, 
it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth 
much fruit." The visit of the Greeks, heathen, prose- 
lytes of the gate, and their request, was a suggestion 
to Jesus that the time had come for him to die, and 
thus to open the door for the wide extension and 
growth of his kingdom beyond the limits of Judaism. 
That very idea of the significance of his death is in- 
timated which is clearly brought out by the Apostle 
Paul. 

The first sign of a disposition to break through the 
wall that fenced off the Gentiles appears in the liber- 
ality of tone which was manifested by Stephen. It 
drew on him the charge of having threatened with 
destruction the whole Mosaic system of worship. His 
death dispersed the Church and sent abroad many 
to engage in missionary work. Philip, one of the 
deacons, preached with success in Samaria, and the 
Samaritan converts were recognized by the Apostles. 
The Samaritans, however, were among the circum- 



110 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

cised ; but the Ethiopian chamberlain, the eunuch, 
was only a proselyte of the gate, if he was even that. 
It required supernatural communications to Peter to 
induce him to receive the Roman centurion Cornelius 
and others with him, as disciples, and to sit at the 
same table with them. But Peter, when he returned 
to Jerusalem, was taken to task for his proceeding. 
When he told his tale, the accusers were quieted, and 
there was joy over this accession of Gentile believers. 
The illiberal spirit was quelled, but only for a time. 
It was not at Jerusalem, but at Antioch that the 
catholic interpretation of the Gospel first gained a 
foothold. There some of the dispersed disciples, 
Hellenists, or foreign Jewish converts, preached the 
new faith to the heathen. There in that great city, 
which was one of the three principal cities of the 
Roman Empire, Rome and Alexandria being the other 
two, the message of the Gospel met with a quick 
response in heathen souls that found in it satisfaction 
for their spiritual hunger. Barnabas, himself a for- 
eign-born Jew, a native of Cyprus, was sent by the 
Jerusalem church to look after this new movement. 

For a number of years after Paul's conversion he 
is almost lost to our knowledge. There was a so- 
journ in Arabia; and then, after the lapse of three 
years, a return to Damascus. From there he was 
soon obliged to flee. Then followed a visit to Jeru- 
salem to see Peter, with whom he spent fourteen 
days. After this visit he went into " the regions of 
Syria and Cilicia." The churches in Judsea had not 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. Ill 

met him, but had only heard that he who had been 
a violent enemy of their cause, had now become a 
preacher of the faith which he had persecuted. Later, 
he is found at Tarsus, and thence he is brought by 
Barnabas, who needed his help, to Antioch. They 
" taught much people " there, and there the disciples 
were first called " Christians." There is a coinci- 
dence between the ceasing to be a Jewish sect and 
the acquisition of the new name by which believers 
in Jesus were thenceforward to be designated. Up 
to this time they had been called "Nazarenes," "Gali- 
leans," or " Ebionites." Paul and Barnabas, accord- 
ing to Luke, were sent upon the occasion of a famine 
in Judaea with contributions to the Jewish Christians 
there ; but as Paul makes no allusion to his being 
there on this errand, it is probable that by some 
accident he was hindered from accomplishing it. 

So vigorous was the Antioch church that it sent 
missionaries into Asia Minor. On the return to 
Antioch of Paul and Barnabas from their missionary 
journey, they found the church in a ferment. Men 
from Judaea had arrived and had raised a disturbance 
by warning the disciples that they must conform to 
the Jewish law and be circumcised, or give up the 
hope of salvation. There was discussion and debate 
between Paul and his companion on one side, and the 
Judaean visitors on the other. Finally it was resolved 
that the two Antioch leaders should depart at the 
head of a deputation to confer with the Jerusalem 
church on this all-important subject of dispute. In 



112 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

that church there had been an addition of members 
from the Pharisaic sect who were opposed to con- 
ceding liberty to the Gentile converts in this contro- 
verted matter. The rapid growth of the Antioch 
church, the multiplying of heathen converts, might 
naturally awaken anxiety and give rise to misgivings 
among many who had given way under the peculiar 
circumstances in the case of Cornelius. It was not 
now a question about a few individuals. Here was 
an organized church, on the basis of absolute freedom 
from " the law," and engaged in a successful work 
of propagandism. What was to become of the dis- 
tinctive privilege of the Jew ? Was the new king- 
dom to abolish the old cultus ? Was it to be composed 
largely, and perhaps predominantly, of uncircumcised 
heathen ? The turn of events brought up afresh a 
question of vital moment. Paul, on his side, had a 
full sense of the importance of the crisis. He re- 
solved to meet it in the frankest and most direct 
manner. He would go to Jerusalem, and meet the 
Apostles and the church there face to face. He 
went up, he tells us, by "revelation," — by divine 
sanction ; but he went, as Luke states, with the 
sanction of the Antioch church and as their com- 
missioner. Fourteen years had elapsed since his 
visit to Peter ; seventeen years had passed since his 
conversion. 

We are brought to the memorable occurrences of 
which we have accounts in the fifteenth chapter of 
Acts and the second chapter of Galatians. At Jeru- 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 113 

saleni the demand was made of Paul that Titus, a 
Greek convert who accompanied him, should be cir- 
cumcised. Here was a practical test that would de- 
cide the point in dispute. This demand the Apostle 
met with a resolute denial. That there was a pres- 
sure upon him which it was not an easy thing to 
withstand, is evident from his language. At that 
supreme moment he did not flinch. The intense 
agitation which the recollection of the crisis stirred 
within him is betrayed in his language ; it causes 
him in referring to it, as Lightfoot remarks, to make 
shipwreck of grammar. We can well believe that his 
voice trembled as he dictated the passage to his aman- 
uensis. Did the other Apostles join in this request, 
so repugnant to his views and feelings ? We are not 
justified by anything that he says in inferring that 
they did. Still it would appear that Paul was left to 
stand alone, with no outspoken sympathy from any 
quarter. It is not improbable that even the Apostles 
at that moment, under the circumstances, recom- 
mended him to yield, and to make the required con- 
cession. But he felt that the principle was at stake. 
The very meaning of the Gospel, the breadth of its 
grace, the liberty of the Gentile, hung on a pivot. The 
Apostle took a stand like that which Luther took at 
Worms ; but with a difference. But for Paul there 
would have been no Luther, — unless, indeed, it should 
have pleased God to raise up in the room of Paul an- 
other equally clear-sighted expositor of the truth and 
intrepid leader in the church. There was another dif- 

8 



114 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

ference. There were numerous friends at Worms to 
sympathize with Luther's position. Paul was alone. 

Paul and Barnabas took the precaution to have a 
private conference with the leading persons in the 
Jerusalem church before they should meet its mem- 
bers as a body. Paul laid before the select company 
the substance of his preaching, the Gospel as he 
understood it, in order that his career as a mission- 
ary might not be interfered with by a division among 
the Apostles themselves, and an opposition to him, 
the fruit of misconception. The other Apostles were 
told not only what Paul and Barnabas had preached, 
but also the result of their preaching, — how that 
among the heathen Paul had been as successful as 
Peter had been among the Jews. No further per- 
suasion was needful. Peter, James, and John had 
nothing to add to Paul's teaching by way of cor- 
rection or amendment. On the contrary, they ex- 
tended to the Antioch leaders the right hand of 
fellowship, with the understanding that their work 
was to be among the heathen, while their own work 
should continue to be among the circumcised. There 
was a cordial fellowship, as was implied in the en- 
gagement of Paul to collect alms from the Gentile 
converts for the poor disciples of the mother-church. 
The danger of a rupture was now over. It was set- 
tled that the heathen were not to be driven to become 
Jews in order to be Christians. But it remained for 
the Apostle of liberty to meet the Jerusalem church 
as a body. Our knowledge of this public gathering 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 115 

we owe to Luke. At the meeting the recruits from 
the Pharisaic sect renewed their demand. Peter op- 
posed it in a characteristic address, wherein he re- 
ferred to what had occurred in relation to Cornelius. 
James spoke the final word, quoting, as he naturally 
would, passages from the prophets. He gave his 
voice in behalf of catholicity, but recommended that 
the heathen converts should be enjoined to abstain 
from certain practices which were especially obnoxious 
to men of Jewish birth, who had been trained to ob- 
serve the laws of Moses and were to continue to do 
so. These articles of peace clashed with no prin- 
ciple which Paul valued. They included nothing 
that could fairly be called a modification of his teach- 
ing. They probably put in a definite form what was 
already a custom of the Gentile converts. They are 
based on the injunctions, imposed alike on Israelites 
and strangers among them, which are set forth in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Leviticus*, 
and included the usages which were practised by 
proselytes of the gate. The agreement of the Jeru- 
salem conference, therefore, was not a compromise 
or concession to Jewish prejudices. It served to 
keep the peace among the disciples in Syria and 
Cilicia, to whom it was addressed. At a later day, 
when Gentile churches were independently established 
and in remoter places, the Apostle does not feel him- 
self bound to refer to this pastoral letter of the Jeru- 
salem conference. In writing to the Corinthians he 
considers the question of " meat offered to idols " on 



116 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

its own merits, — just as he calls for gifts of money 
for the Jerusalem Christians without referring to the 
stipulation that he should make a collection for their 
benefit. Yet he teaches nothing at variance with 
the essential purport of the instructions given to the 
Gentile converts. We may be sure that James would 
have been content with nothing less than these " ne- 
cessary things," and that Paul would not have con- 
sented to go farther in the path of concession. To 
the fact of their harmony and satisfaction with one 
another Paul himself testifies. That he did not go 
to the extreme attributed to him by Baur and his 
fellow-critics is clear enough from the Apostle's ex- 
press recognition of the " gospel of the circumci- 
sion " as having been committed to Peter, and of the 
divine blessing which had been accorded to Peter 
in his work (Gal. ii. 8). 

Ecclesiastical settlements were not then more cer- 
tain to be final than in later times. It was under- 
stood on all hands that the Gentiles were to be left 
unmolested. But it was expected that Jewish Chris- 
tians, whoever they were, should continue to conform 
to the old observances. To this Paul felt no objec- 
tion. What he refused to do was to impose an obli- 
gation of this sort on the heathen ; he would not 
allow it a place among the terms of salvation. If 
in the consultation of the Apostles at Jerusalem his 
own work had been approved by Peter, he in turn 
had approved Peter's work as the Apostle of "the 
circumcision." It was enough for him that the legal 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 117 

observances were not made the foundation of the 
Disciples' hope in Christ. As regards outward things, 
he was no revolutionist. He let the Jewish national 
usages remain as they were ; he willingly conformed 
to them himself. Not needlessly to offend Jews, he 
caused Timothy, whose mother was a Jew, to be cir- 
cumcised. But still there were points which the 
Jerusalem conference left undetermined. So the con- 
troversy was reopened at Antioch in relation to one 
of these unsettled points. The Jewish and heathen 
converts there mingled together freely, and sat down 
at a common table. Peter, as well as Paul and Bar- 
nabas, had no scruples of conscience respecting this 
kind of free intercourse. But at length certain per- V 

sons came from James. We are sure that they were 
persons of influence, for when they objected to this 
liberality on the part of Jewish Christians, not only 
Barnabas, but even Peter, deferred to them, and 
" drew back and separated " themselves. The rest 
of the Jewish Christians followed them. Here there 
was suddenly drawn a new line of division between 
the two classes of Christians. Once more Paul had 
to stand by himself. He sharply and publicly re- 
buked Peter for timidity and unfaithfulness to prin- 
ciple. He, a Jew, had been living as a Gentile 
himself, and now he was trying, so far as his example 
went, to bring the Gentiles to live as if they were 
Jews. The authors of this trouble came from James. 
It is not safe to conclude that they came expressly 
on this errand. Yet it may be that the liberal course 



118 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

taken by Peter was the occasion of their mission. It 
is, on the whole, probable that their view of the sub- 
ject was one in which James participated. He had 
given to Paul and Barnabas, in all sincerity, the right 
hand of fellowship. It does not follow that he ex- 
pected the old restrictions as to eating with the 
Gentiles, and their social relations in general, to be 
swept away. It is likely that he did not interpret 
the Jerusalem arrangement in so broad a way as 
Paul construed it. A church made up as at Antioch, 
of Gentiles and Jews together, presented a case which 
in the conference had not been definitely consid- 
ered. The tradition about James as it was given 
by Hegesippus, the Jewish Christian historian, in the 
middle of the second century, represents him as an 
ascetic, observing the Nazarite rule, strict in all his 
ways, frequently resorting alone to the temple, " pray- 
ing for the forgiveness of the people until his knees 
grew hard and thin." We see him, on the occasion 
of Paul's last visit to Jerusalem, receiving the Apostle 
to the Gentiles with fraternal cordiality, to be sure, 
yet advising him to make a further manifestation of 
his respect for the ritual by taking on himself a vow, 
which involved the shaving of the head. The motive 
of James's counsel is thus explained in his own 
language : " That ... all may know . . . that thou 
thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law" 
(Acts xxi. 24). The occurrence shows how strenu- 
ous James was for the keeping up of the Mosaic cere- 
monies by the Jewish Christians, and how anxious 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 119 

he was that Paul should do something to efface a 
prevailing impression that he had tried to induce 
Jews to discard them. 

The spirit of James is clearly disclosed in the Epis- 
tle which bears his name. It was included in the 
ancient Syriac canon, and as it was addressed to Jew- 
ish Christians outside of Palestine, it was not improb- 
ably intended to be read primarily by Syrian disciples. 
The law, in the spiritual import given to it by Jesus, 
is prominent in the writer's esteem. We observe in 
the Epistle not a few echoes of the teaching of Christ. 
The practical tone, averse to all theory and theologic 
disputation, is obvious. Its doctrine is not contradic- 
tory to that of Paul, but moves in a different line. 
As Jesus had taught, it is said that men are to be 
judged by their works. There is a verbal contrast 
with sayings of Paul ; for example, in the definite 
assertion that Abraham was justified by works. 
Whether or not we are to conclude that the author 
had in mind a current use and misuse of Pauline 
phraseology, depends on the date to which James's 
Epistle is to be assigned. Some would place it too 
early to admit of any reference to Pauline theology. 
There is much in the peculiarities of the Epistle — as 
in the application of the name " synagogue " to the 
meeting-place of Christians — to favor the supposi- 
tion of a very early date. Could it be shown that it 
was written by James at a later point of time, the 
opinion that it refers to Pauline language would be 
more probable. 



120 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

What was the immediate outcome of the renewed 
controversy at Antioch, the Apostle in his letter to 
the Galatians does not inform us. Taken up with his 
theme, — salvation by faith alone, — he drops the con- 
sideration of personal matters. About seven years 
after the apostolic conference at Jerusalem and the 
subsequent rebuke of Peter, we find Paul writing an 
epistle to the Christians at Rome. During this in- 
terval he had been pursued with animosity by the 
Judaizing faction, of whose malignity he repeatedly 
complains. Nowhere does he imply that the other 
Apostles are in sympathy with these enemies of him- 
self and of the Gospel. On the contrary, his refer- 
ences to the other Apostles imply the opposite. Yet 
the reports which the Judaizers set afloat concerning 
him, to which a reference has just been made, might 
easily excite a certain degree of alarm and uneasi- 
ness even among the apostolic leaders who had ex- 
tended to him the right hand of fellowship. We 
must bear in mind that the disturbance at Antioch 
had followed. Whether the separation of Paul from 
Barnabas, the immediate occasion of which had refer- 
ence to Mark, had any connection with that incident, 
we are not informed. At all events, when Paul writes 
to the Romans, he is looking forward to another visit 
to Jerusalem, not without some anxiety about the re- 
ception that will be accorded to him. He asks for 
the prayers of the Roman brethren not only that he 
may be delivered from the hostility of the unbelieving 
Jews in that city, but also that his " ministration " 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 121 

might be acceptable to the " saints " there. There 
was some apprehension in his mind lest the collection 
which he had been making for the poor in the Jeru- 
salem church might be unwelcome (Rom. xv. 31), 
gathered as it was from churches composed of heathen 
converts, and while the accusation of being hostile to 
the observance of the Mosaic rites by anybody was 
circulated against him. His kind and fraternal re- 
ception by James and his associates dispelled this 
apprehension. The mob of Jews that assailed him, 
notwithstanding the precautions taken to appease 
their wrath, showed the hatred which had been accu- 
mulating against him in the course of the missionary 
campaigns in which he had spent the later eventful 
years. 

The Apostle now passed into the custody of Roman 
officers. At the end of about two years he was con- 
veyed to Rome. After the lapse of another equal 
interval, he appears to have been set free for a time. 
Once more a captive, it was in the closing part of 
Nero's reign, the period of the tyrant's unbridled 
cruelty, and in the year 66 or 67, that he fell under 
the sword of the executioner. If the name of James 
is not an interpolation in a passage of Josephus, 
James perished in the interval between the death of 
the procurator Festus and the arrival of his successor, 
or in the year 62. As to the main fact that James 
was stoned to death, the traditions agree. It is evi- 
dent that the animosity of the Jews even against the 
most conservative — if the term may be allowed — of 



122 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the followers of Jesus was growing fierce. The lines 
between the adherents of orthodox Judaism and the 
believers in the Nazarene were more and more sharply 
drawn. At length, in the year 66, the great insurrec- 
tion against Rome burst out. In the blaze of the 
popular fanaticism there was no safety for Christians 
within the walls of Jerusalem. The church there was 
broken up. When the epoch of the mortal struggle of 
Judaism with Roman power was fast approaching, the 
Jewish Christians must necessarily find that the mid- 
dle position which, in a certain sense, they had held, 
was no longer tenable. There were circumstances 
which might tempt them to give up their faith in 
Jesus, and to find their comfort exclusively in the old 
system in which they had been bred, and whose cere- 
monies they still observed. They had hoped for the 
conversion of their countrymen, but that hope grew 
more and more faint. They had hoped for the re- 
appearance of the ascended Messiah, but where was 
the promise of his coming ? Patriotic instincts might 
naturally awake to a new life, and sympathy with the 
national enthusiasm, impelling to a revolt against 
foreign domination, might find a lodgment even 
in Christian hearts. There stands in the canon an 
Epistle to the Hebrews, concerning the authorship of 
which opinion has been divided from ancient times. 
At the present day there are few scholars who attri- 
bute it to Paul. Some, with Luther, ascribe it to 
Apollos ; others to Luke, or to Barnabas. Whoever 
the writer was, it is certain that it was addressed to 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 123. 

Jewish Christians. The purpose of the author, more- 
over, is clear. He sees a danger and he is striving to 
ward it off. He seeks to deter Jewish believers from 
lapsing from their faith and returning to Judaism. 
He is anxious to show them that they have in the 
Gospel a treasure infinitely more precious than any- 
thing offered them in the old ritual, and that the 
ordinances and ceremonies of the ancient covenant 
are but types of blessed and enduring realities brought 
to them through Christ. To go back to the old 
sacrificial system is to give up the substance for the 
shadow. 

If there was a retrograde movement, a reactionary 
tendency in some minds at this critical era, when the 
fate of the Jewish state and the Jewish religion hung 
in the balance, the same circumstances would engen- 
der in another class an opposite feeling. They would 
cling to the Christian faith with redoubled ardor and 
firmness. The tie that still held them to the old cere- 
monies would be loosened. The rejection of the Mes- 
siah by the Jewish people, and the persistent rejection 
of him, with the attendant fact of the astonishing 
spread of the new faith among the Gentiles, must 
have tended to open the eyes of many to a more just 
and liberal interpretation of the purpose of God. A 
fatal blow was dealt at Jewish Christianity by Divine 
Providence, — the same Providence which had been 
the teacher from the beginning, removing, step by 
step, prejudice and misconception. No doubt there 
were those with whom the legions of Titus were more 



124 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

effective than persuasion and argument. The " logic 
of events " could not be disputed. Many Jewish 
Christians must have seen in the ruins of the Temple 
a sign of the passing away of the ancient system of 
worship. When the Jewish rites were wholly for- 
bidden in Jerusalem, and it was converted by Hadrian 
into a heathen city (a. d. 135), the lesson was taught 
afresh with an irresistible emphasis. 

It was probably about the time of the beginning of 
the Jewish war, and after the death of the Apostle 
Paul, that there was a migration of a number of Jew- 
ish Christians to Asia Minor. Among them were the 
two Apostles Andrew and Philip, and among them 
also was the Apostle John. John took up his abode 
at Ephesus. Traditions of his life and teaching and 
traces of his influence remained in all that region. 
There, in his serene old age, he wrote his Gospel and 
Epistles. From one of his pupils, the martyr Poly- 
carp, Irenaeus in his youth heard personal reminis- 
cences of the Beloved Disciple. It is the same 
Apostle who, long before, had given to the Apostle to 
the Gentiles " the right hand of fellowship." After 
all these years, after the providential occurrences 
which had swept away the hope of the conversion of 
the Jews as a body, it would be strange indeed if no 
further advance had been made in catholicity of per- 
ception. The sayings of Jesus, which indicate the 
spiritual and universal nature of the Gospel, are pres- 
ent in John's recollection. He remembered that 
Jesus had said that the worship of the Father was not 



CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 125 

to be confined to Mount Gerizim or to Jerusalem. 
Christianity was now set free from Judaism, and in 
the second century Judaic Christianity survived only 
in sects beyond the borders of the church. 

To revert for a moment to the causes which brought 
on this result, the historical events to which refer- 
ence has been made have an important place. The 
subjugation of the Jews by Hadrian, and the exclu- 
sion of their worship from the Holy City, were of 
especial consequence. An essential condition, on 
which the result depended, was the multiplying of 
churches made up of Gentile converts. The rapid 
spread of the Gospel in the Gentile world, and the 
comparative fewness of its Jewish adherents, excited 
surprise even in the lifetime of Paul. It was to him 
a mysterious fact, a fact that called for explanation. 
His heart is wrung when he thinks of the situation 
in which his " kinsmen according to the flesh " are 
left. That they should not be included within the 
fold of the Messiah ! Through the ninth, the tenth, 
and the eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans he wrestles with the problem. He rests in no 
single solution, but passes from one to another. The 
blessing of God has never been bestowed strictly ac- 
cording to the law of heredity ; God's sovereign will 
has decided on whom it should descend ; it is im- 
pious to call in question his right to determine the 
lot of his creatures. Then there is always a rem- 
nant of Israelites who are not cut off from the bless- 
ing. Moreover, if the rest lose it, the fault is theirs ; 



126 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

they do not seek it by faith. Finally, their rejection 
is only temporary ; when the Gentiles have flowed 
in, their emulation will be kindled, their turn will 
come ; " and so all Israel shall be saved." Thus in 
these fervid passages, passing from one suggestion to 
another, the Apostle pours out his soul, rent with 
anguish by the spectacle of the people of Israel, whose 
are the promises, turning their back on the Christ. 
Theologians have too often erred in losing sight of 
the historical situation which so deeply moved the 
Apostle, and in fixing their attention on only a frac- 
tion of his utterances. But the point which concerns 
us here is the effect of the influx of the Gentiles, and 
of the comparatively small accession of Jewish con- 
verts, in determining the character of the Church and 
in moulding its institution. The catholic character 
of early Christianity was in no small measure the re- 
sult of these circumstances. But underlying all other 
agencies was the leavening influence of the teaching 
of Jesus. The catholic elements of that teaching pro- 
duced their legitimate effect. They were the warrant 
for the doctrine of the Apostle Paul. They leavened 
the spirit of the Apostle John. It was Jesus and the 
teaching of Jesus that liberated Christianity from the 
entanglements of Judaism. 



CHAPTER IV. 

REVELATION AND FAITH. 

The term " Revelation " is commonly used to de- 
note religious truth supernaturally communicated, 
as distinguished from the knowledge of God obtained 
by natural means. In this use of terms revealed 
religion stands in contrast with natural religion. But 
all our knowledge of God, through whatever medium 
derived, is from one ultimate source. That source is 
a revelation, or disclosure, which God makes of him- 
self. And all truth respecting things divine and 
supernatural is apprehended by faith. Faith is the 
word descriptive of the mind's reception of it. Hence, 
in speaking of faith, and illustrating its nature, we 
may fitly take into view the fundamental truths of 
natural theology as well as Christianity. 

It is often said, and the same thing is more often 
insinuated, that faith is something independent of evi- 
dence. It is looked upon as belief for which no rea- 
sons — that is to say, no valid reasons — are to be 
assigned. The individual himself, such is the impli- 
cation, may perhaps be fully persuaded, but nothing 
that he can say constitutes an adequate ground of 
conviction for other minds than his own. 



128 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

One occasion of this impression is the failure to 
distinguish between the sources and the proofs of 
religion. The genesis of religion as a fact of expe- 
rience is one thing ; the proofs of its reasonableness 
and the vindication of faith against scepticism are 
another. The genesis of religion is primarily from 
within, and not from without. As Aristotle styled 
man a political animal, it may be affirmed with even 
more emphasis that man is a religious being. Re- 
ligion is not something foreign to his nature, imported 
into it from the external world, inculcated as a piece 
of information by his elders ; nor is it, in its origin, 
an inference from the marks of design stamped upon 
things about him. The roots of religion are not in 
any process of the understanding. The idea that 
religious faith is a delusion of the imagination, a 
superstition engendered by dreams or by the fancied 
sight of ghosts of the dead, is disproved by history 
and philosophy. Religion is too deeply embedded in 
human nature, it is too powerful a factor in the his- 
tory of mankind, to be accounted for by any of these 
superficial conjectures. Faith in the Being above us, 
the Author of our being, springs out of the sense of 
dependence and the feeling of obligation and of law, 
— law felt as the manifested will of another, even the 
infinite Spirit in whom we live, — and it is born of 
that yearning for a higher fellowship with him which 
alone can fill the soul with peace and joy. This 
primal revelation of God in the soul is the fountain- 
head of religion. However vague this impression 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 129 

may be in the beginning, however obscure the percep- 
tion, and however dim it is rendered by the absorbing 
quest for earthly pleasure, it is the light of all our 
seeing. There is a nisus in the souls of men, — a 
tendency " to seek God, if haply they might feel after 
him and find him." This implied recognition of the 
existence of God is that from which — as John Calvin, 
in unison with the most profound philosophers of all 
ages, expresses it — "the propensity to religion pro- 
ceeds." Here is the germ of our distinct and defined 
religious convictions. The latent anticipations of our 
nature are met and matched by the manifestation of 
God in the material world, in history, or the provi- 
dential succession of events, and in Christ. These 
manifestations constitute the objective proofs of reli- 
gion. They are real proofs. Drawn out into explicit 
statements, they constitute the arguments for Christian 
theism. It is true that no constraining efficacy belongs 
to them. But the same is to be said of all reasoning 
that is not strictly demonstrative. No other inter- 
pretation of the phenomena is so satisfactory to the 
unbiassed reason of thoughtful inquirers. At the same 
time, another interpretation of the phenomena is al- 
ways possible. Here it is that the primal disclosure of 
God in consciousness, the native " propensity to reli- 
gion," when it is not dulled or stifled, avails to banish 
doubt. Let it be noticed, also, that this very religious 
constitution, by which we are inwardly drawn to God, 
correlated as it is to objective manifestations, consti- 
tutes an argument for the verity to which it points. 



130 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

The great church historian Neander, whose living 
experience of religion opened to his mind its true 
philosophy, has these noble words respecting Socrates : 
" Socrates stands at the head of those men of supreme 
distinction in the world's history who, in the times 
when faith in anything divine and in objective truth 
has been shaken and shattered by the sophistry of an 
understanding that disintegrates all things, and the 
power of an all-embracing spirit of denial, have led 
men back into the depths of their soul, which is akin 
to God, and have caused them to find in the im- 
mediate consciousness of the true and the divine an 
assurance lifted above all doubts. From the specu- 
lative questions, in answering which the spirit ever 
anew tires itself out, he turned their glance within 
upon their own moral nature. From the external 
world he called the spirit back to its own inner being, 
that it might there find its whereabout and learn to 
be at home. It is the weighty ' know thyself ' which 
the oracle at Delphi praised as the characteristic 
merit of Socrates. The great impulse that went forth 
from him worked on for centuries, and in later times 
was continually renewed by the agency of men who 
carried down his spirit to after ages ; and this in- 
fluence it was which directed attention to that in 
man which is immediately related to God and to the 
moral element in the human soul, as well as from 
this, as the starting-point, to the religious." What 
sceptical minds need in this age, as in every other, 
is to remember that man has a soul as well as an 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 131 

understanding. Conscience, sensibility, affection, as- 
piration are a deep and indestructible part of human 
nature. As there is a soul, there is a life of the soul. 
There are presages and inchoate beliefs native to 
human beings, existing by their own right, entitled 
to respect, needing, it may be, light and direction, 
but too sacred to be ignored. To surrender them is 
to fling away that which is most precious in man. 
In the depths of the spirit religion has its birth. It 
is a flame kindled in the soul by its Divine Author. 

Keeping in mind that the grounds of faith are in 
the connection of the subjective and objective mani- 
festations of God, each throwing light upon the other 
and each serving to corroborate the other, we may 
glance at certain leading proofs of theism which thus 
address us from without. 

Nature is pervaded by an intellectual element. 
That nature is intelligible, is the prime assumption 
in all study of natural phenomena. As Professor 
Huxley truly remarks, at the beginning of a recent 
essay on the progress of science in the last half cen- 
tury, the object of science " is the discovery of the 
rational order which pervades the universe.' , This 
affinity of nature with our own minds, this mind in 
nature, implies an intelligent Author of nature. It is 
possible to conclude otherwise, but not reasonable or 
natural. 

Materialistic atheism must begin with the impossi- 
ble task of resolving the human mind into a machine, 
and identifying consciousness and thought with the 



132 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

molecular movements of the brain. It must build a 
bridge which can never be built. The doctrine of the 
conservation of energy affords no help in this direc- 
tion. Clerk Maxwell, one of its most authoritative 
expounders, says : " There is action and reaction 
between body and soul, but it is not of a kind in which 
energy passes from one to the other, — as when a 
man pulls a trigger, it is the gunpowder that projects 
the bullet, or when a pointsman shunts a train, it is 
the rails that bear the thrust. . . . The conservation 
of energy, when applied to living beings, leads to the 
conclusion that the soul of an animal is not, like the 
mainspring of a watch, the motive power of the body, 
but that its function is rather that of a steersman of 
a vessel, — not to produce, but to regulate and direct, 
the animal powers." 

No modern discoveries have weakened the force of 
the argument of design, which in all ages has im- 
pressed alike the philosopher and the peasant. Evo- 
lution is a method, not a cause. It does nothing to 
account for the origin of things or the energy exerted 
in all progressive development. " It is plain," says 
Mr. Sully, " that every doctrine of evolution must 
assume some definite initial arrangement, which is 
supposed to contain the possibilities of the order 
which we find to be evolved, and no other possi- 
bility." Until that initial arrangement, involving all 
that issues out of it, is accounted for, not a step is 
taken towards explaining the world. The outcome 
of all the past history of Nature is undeniably an 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 133 

orderly system, — a cosmos. To introduce an ele- 
ment of " chance " in the succession of steps leading 
to it is a philosophical absurdity. Such a meaning- 
less notion might seem to be countenanced in the 
terms used to describe the promiscuous variation 
which was a part of Mr. Darwin's theory. But even 
Mr. Darwin had no thought of denying that there are 
laws of variability. " Our ignorance," he says, " of 
the laws of variation is profound." This of course 
implies that there are such laws. The constitution 
of the being that varies is an essential factor, and 
with Mr. Darwin the prime factor, in producing the 
variations which constitute the materials on which 
the so-called selective agency of nature acts. But 
according to many evolutionists, like Asa Gray, va- 
riation moves along definite lines, and its range is 
limited. If this were not the fact, as the physio- 
logist Dr. W. B. Carpenter cogently argues, the 
chances to be overcome in building up an organized 
species are infinite. " On the hypothesis of ' natu- 
ral selection ' among aimless variations," says Dr. 
Carpenter, " I think that it could be shown that the 
probability is infinitely small that the progressive 
modifications required in the structure of each indi- 
vidual organ to convert a reptile into a bird could 
have taken place without disturbing the required har- 
mony in their combined action ; nothing but inten- 
tional variations being competent to bring such a 
result." The proof of this pre-arrangement is fur- 
nished "by the orderly sequence of variations fol- 



134 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

lowing definite lines of advance. The evidence of 
final causes is not impaired. ' We simply,' to use the 
language of Whe well, 'transfer the notion of design 
and end from the region of facts to that of laws ; ' 
that is, from the particular cases to the general plan. 
In this general plan the production of man is com- 
prehended. In him, the final product, the meaning 
and aim of the entire scheme of creation are fully 
discovered." 

There are naturalists, among them Mr. Wallace, 
who are in more full accord with Darwin's particular 
view, and ascribe more to " natural selection." Gen- 
erally speaking, even these are not so rash as to un- 
dertake to rule out teleology, and to explain the 
phenomena of vegetable and animal life on a mechan- 
ical theory which excludes design. How inadequate 
t}.e mechanical view is, regarded as an explanation 
of nature, has been demonstrated by Lotze and other 
philosophers, who are not in the least averse to the 
doctrine of a genetic relation of animal species to one 
another, or even to a wider extension of evolutionary 
theory. It is easy for naturalists to become absorbed 
in the search after the links of causal connection 
which bind together the phenomena of nature. There 
is an extreme, the antipode of that false use of the 
idea of final causes which stifled inductive investiga- 
tion and against which Bacon protested. But even 
to naturalists of the present day, who are chargeable 
with this error, the teleological aspect of nature, the 
design that runs through all, will at times come home 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 135 

with an irresistible force of impression. Darwin is 
himself an example. The Duke of Argyll, speaking 
of the phenomena of nature, which " our mind recog- 
nizes as mental," writes as follows : — 

" I have the best reason to know that Darwin himself 
was very far from being insensible to the evidence of this 
truth. In the year preceding his death he did me the 
honor to call upon me in London ; and in the course of 
our conversation I said to him that to me it seemed 
wholly impossible to separate many of the adjustments 
which he had so laboriously traced and described, to any 
other agency than that of mind. His reply was one 
which has left an ineffaceable impression upon me, not 
from its words only, but from the tone and manner in 
which it was given. ; Well,' he said, ' that impression 
has often come upon me with overpowering force. But 
then, at other times, it all seems — ; ' and then he passed 
his hands across his eyes, as if to indicate the passing of 
a vision out of sight." 

The admission of a First Cause — that is, of a Cause 
which is not itself an effect — is unavoidable, unless 
the principle of causation is to be utterly discredited. 
The Agnostic theory of an " Unknowable " is self- 
destructive. To ascribe to the Infinite Being power, 
is open to whatever objection is imagined to lie 
against the ascription to that Being of intelligence. 
It is assumed that there is a revelation of power: 
because of this revelation the existence of that being: 
is assumed. But the revelation of intelligence is 
every whit as clear. 

How shall we be assured of the moral attributes 



136 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of God, of bis holiness and love ? We are in a world 
that abounds in suffering. How shall this be recon- 
ciled with benevolence in the Creator ? Much weight 
is to be given to the consideration of the effects flow- 
ing of necessity from a system of general laws, not- 
withstanding the advantages of such a system. The 
suggestions relative to the occasions and beneficent 
offices of pain and death, which are presented by such 
writers as James Martineau, in his recent work, " A 
Study of Religion," are helpful. Especially is the 
fact of moral evil to be taken into the account when 
a solution is sought for the problem of physical evil, 
its concomitant and so often its consequence. Let it 
be freely granted, however, that no explanations that 
man can devise avail to clear up altogether the mys- 
tery of evil. It is only a small part of the system of 
things that falls under our observation in the present 
stage of our being. It is not by an inductive argu- 
ment, by showing a preponderance of good over evil 
in the arrangements of nature, that the mind is set 
at rest. There is no need of an argument of this 
kind. There is need of faith, but that faith is ra- 
tional. We find in our own moral constitution a 
direct and full attestation of the goodness of God. 
Our moral constitution is affirmed, by a class of evo- 
lutionists, to be a gradual growth from a foundation 
of animal instincts. Let this speculation go for what 
it may be worth. The same theory is advanced re- 
specting the human intellect. Yet the intellect is 
assumed to be an organ of knowledge. There is no 



REVELATION AND FAITH. J 37 

avoiding this conclusion, else all science, evolution- 
ary science included, is a castle in the air. If the 
intellect is entitled to trust, so equally is the moral 
nature. Are the righteousness and goodness of God 
called in question on the ground of perplexing facts 
observed in the structure and course of the world ? 
Where do we get the qualifications for raising such 
inquiries or rendering an answer to them ? It must 
be from ideals of character which we find within our- 
selves, and from the supreme place accorded to the 
moral law which is written on the heart. But whence 
come these moral ideals ? Who enthroned the law of 
righteousness in the heart ? Who inscribed on the 
tablets of the soul the assertion of the inviolable au- 
thority of right and the absolute worth of love as a 
motive of action ? In a word, our moral constitution 
is itself given us of God, and if it be not the reflection 
of his character, it is, for aught we can say, a false 
light ; in which case all the verdicts resting upon it, 
with all the queries of scepticism as to the goodness 
of God, may be illusive. The arraignment of the 
character of God on the ground of alleged imper- 
fections in nature or of seemingly harsh and unjust 
occurrences in the course of events, is therefore sui- 
cidal. The revelation of God's character is in our 
moral constitution. The voice within us, which is 
uttered in the sacred impulse of duty and in the law 
of love, is his voice. There we learn what he ap- 
proves, what he requires, what he rewards. When 
this proposition is denied, we lose our footing; we 



138 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

cut away the ground for trust in our own capacity for 
moral criticism. 

Man has not one originating cause, and the world 
another. The existence and supreme authority of 
conscience imply that in the on-going of the world 
righteousness holds sway. If there is a moral pur- 
pose underlying the course of things, then a righteous 
Being is at the helm. What confusion worse than 
chaos in the idea that while man himself is bound to 
be actuated by a moral purpose, the universe in which 
he is to act his part exists for no moral end, and that 
through the course of things no moral purpose runs ! 

Even Kant, who bases our conviction as to the fun- 
damental truths of religion on moral grounds, and 
asserts for it, not a strictly logical, but a moral cer- 
tainty, nevertheless declares this conviction to be in- 
evitable where there exist right moral dispositions. 
" The only caution to be observed," he says, " is 
that this faith of the intellect (Vernunftglaube) is 
founded on the assumption of moral tempers." If 
one were utterly indifferent to moral laws, even then 
the conclusion " would still be supported indeed by 
strong arguments from analogy, but not by such as an 
obstinate sceptical bent might not overcome." 

It is not my object in these remarks to draw out in 
full the proofs of the existence and the moral attri- 
butes of God. It is rather to illustrate the relation in 
which these proofs stand to those perceptions, in- 
choate and spontaneous in the experiences of the soul, 
which are the ultimate subjective source of religion, 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 139 

and on which the living appreciation of the revelation 
of God in external nature is contingent. Let it be 
observed, moreover, that these native spiritual experi- 
ences of dependence, of obligation and accountable- 
ness, of hunger for fellowship with the Infinite One, 
wherein religion takes its rise and has its root, are 
themselves to be counted as proofs of the reality of 
the object implied in them. They are significant of 
the end for which man was made. They presuppose 
God. 

It is true that all our knowledge rests ultimately on 
an act of faith which finds no warrant in any process 
of reasoning. We cannot climb to this trust on the 
steps of a syllogism. We are obliged to start with a 
confidence in the veracity of our intellectual faculties ; 
and this we have to assume persistently in the whole 
work of acquiring knowledge. Without this assump- 
tion we can no more infer anything or know anything 
than a bird can fly in a vacuum. All science reposes 
on this faith in our own minds, which implies and in- 
cludes faith in the Author of the mind. This primi- 
tive faith in ourselves is moral in its nature. So of 
all that truth which is justly called self-evident. No 
arguments are to be adduced for it. In every process 
of reasoning it is presupposed. We can prove noth- 
ing except on the basis of propositions that admit of 
no proof. But if we leave out of account the domain 
of self-evident truth, which is ground common to both 
religion and science, religious beliefs, as far as they 
are sound, are based on adequate evidence. It may 



140 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION, 

be well, however, to explain somewhat more definitely 
what is denoted by faith, — to say enough, at least, to 
guard against certain misconceptions. At the open- 
ing of one of the noblest passages in the New Testa- 
ment, faith is defined as " the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." A more 
correct rendering of the verse would be : " The firm 
assurance of things hoped for, the being convinced of 
things not seen," — that is, of their reality. Faith 
makes real to the mind objects of hope, things in the 
future ; it makes real also things not cognizable by the 
senses. It takes these things out of a kind of dream- 
land ; and, further, it gives to them a substantial be- 
ing, so that they exercise a due control in the shaping 
of conduct. 

It is superfluous to remark that faith creates noth- 
ing, makes nothing different from what it is already. 
This is evident of that sort of faith which is exercised 
in relation to mundane affairs. I believe in the virtue 
of a medicine ; but if my faith is well founded, the 
virtue is in the medicine quite independently of any 
idea or feeling of mine in regard to it. I believe in a 
physician ; but my belief does not give him the knowl- 
edge and the tact in which I confide. He is just the 
same — just as competent, or incompetent, as the case 
may be — whether I trust in him or not. Or take 
for an illustration the faith of a discoverer. Columbus 
believed that he could reach a continent by sailing 
westward on a path which Europeans had never taken. 
His faith urged him onward week after week and 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 141 

month after month, never turning his prow, regard- 
less of the discontent of his men, until faith was 
rewarded by sight. He descried at last the green 
shores and heard the singing of the birds. The poet 
Schiller, indeed, referring to the ardor of his faith, 
says that had Columbus not found a continent, he 
would have created one. In truth, if he had not 
found the land — had there been no real object an- 
swering to his belief — his faith would have been 
merely a fancy. 

It is equally obvious that nothing is added to the 
sum of religious truth by believing in it; nothing is 
subtracted by indifference or disbelief. As well might 
one think of creating or destroying the visible uni- 
verse by opening or shutting the organ of vision. 
When a person comes to believe in God, he adds not 
a single quality to the nature of that Being with whom 
" is no variableness or shadow of turning ; " he sim- 
ply discerns that which he had failed to see before. 
He finds God. No one imagines that the prodigal 
son created his father by returning to him. The 
forsaken father was always there, waiting for him. 
Faith in the Gospel is simply the practical acknowl- 
edgment of a fact. The Apostle Paul reminds his 
readers that they have not to climb into heaven and 
bring Christ down, or to descend into the grave and 
bring him up. He has already lived among men, and 
he has risen. The victory of Jesus Christ over sin 
and over death is a finished achievement. Faith is 
that recognition of the fact which carries in it appro- 



142 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

priate fruits in feeling and conduct. No one has 
understood better what faith is than Martin Luther, 
himself a great believer. " By faith," says he, " man 
sees into the heart of God. . . . God is the God of 
the humble, the miserable, the afflicted, the oppressed, 
and the desperate, and of those that are brought 
even to nothing ; and his nature is to exalt the hum- 
ble, to feed the hungry, to give sight to the blind, 
to comfort the miserable, the afflicted, the bruised, 
the broken-hearted, to justify sinners, to quicken the 
dead, and to save the very desperate and damned. 
For he is an almighty creator, and maketh all things 
of nothing." 

Luther was not wrong in considering that the one 
essential thing in religion is faith ; for without faith 
there is no real approach to God, — and what is re- 
ligion but converse or communion with God ? Re- 
ligion is a relation of person to person. The reveries 
of Pantheism are not religion in the proper sense of 
the word. He that cometh to God must believe that 
he is, and that he is the rewarder of those who seek 
after him. To speak to a being in whose existence 
one has no belief is little short of lunacy. To pour 
out gratitude or to address a petition to something 
held to be void of consciousness, incapable of hearing, 
is to bid farewell to common-sense. So of the char- 
acter of God ; it has no practical influence on a 
man's thoughts or conduct except as he believes in it. 
Luther, moreover, was right, and only followed the 
Scriptures when he insisted that the source of all 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 113 

wrong-doing* as well as of irreligion is the lack of 
faith. If men believed in God and in a hereafter as 
truly and as vividly as they believe in the reality of 
material things around them, temptations would be 
stripped of their power, sinful pleasure would have 
no chance as a rival of the higher good. Men sin be- 
cause they mistake shadow for substance, and sub- 
stance for shadow. They deify creatures of God, 
believing in them with an idolatrous faith. Not see- 
ing them in contrast with an equally clear view of 
things of imperishable value, they magnify their worth. 
They are drawn to them by an irresistible attraction, 
because they are cut off from the influence of the 
counter-force. They seek to slake the thirst of the 
spirit for the moment, striving to forget that " he that 
drinketh of this water shall thirst again." 

We started with the thesis that the truths of re- 
ligion rest upon good and sufficient evidence. Com- 
paring these truths with well-grounded beliefs of a 
different species where the things believed are with- 
in the circle of every-day life, we shall find that the 
first difference is in the kind of proofs represented, 
not in the comparative degree of weight that belongs 
to them in the two cases. As regards religious truth 
the proofs are not experimental. We cannot apply 
to them the tests of the measuring-rod and the cru- 
cible, and other criteria of a tangible kind, which 
appeal to the senses. The evidence is, to say the 
least, equally weighty, but is not of the same sort. 
Among recent theological writers no one has set 



144 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

forth this not unfamiliar distinction with more force 
and originality than Mozley. Even in astronomy, 
not only is the reasoning in great part of a demon- 
strative kind, being mathematical in its nature, but 
it has the advantage of being verified by the observed 
fulfilment of prediction. The eclipse draws a cur- 
tain over the disk of the sun at the very moment 
set down in the almanac. The comet makes its 
appearance, fulfilling with absolute punctuality a 
prophecy recorded centuries before. It may be 
doubted whether astronomical truth — truth so amaz- 
ing and almost bewildering in its nature — would gain 
the assent of the common mind, were it not veri- 
fied to everybody in this visible and astonishing way. 
Now, the only thing in religion analogous to these 
external tests is the miracle, — including prophecy, 
which is one form of miracle. The miracle is a sign, 
a kind of experimental proof, an appeal to the senses 
as an aid to faith. Jesus wrought miracles only 
where there was already a germinant faith. He said 
to Thomas, " Blessed are they that have not seen, 
and yet have believed." Jesus manifested himself 
to the senses of the doubting disciple, and that dis- 
ciple believed. It is a higher thing to believe when 
there is nothing but testimony, and when the internal 
probability of the fact is thrown into the scale and 
avails to carry the mind's assent. 

It is therefore an error, either undesigned or in- 
tentional, of sceptical writers to describe faith as 
an arbitrary, groundless acceptance of doctrines in 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 145 

behalf of which no proof is possible. This is to con- 
found faith and credulity. It makes religion the 
equivalent of superstition. Montaigne in his Essays, 
in his genial way of avoiding whatever might give 
offence or raise a dispute, affords an example of this 
practice of relegating faith to a province quite apart 
from reason. The open rejection of religious truth 
is avoided by this urbane method of remanding the 
creed to a department where it is presumptuous for 
plain mortals to intrude. Hume in his Essays, 
Gibbon in his History, following a common practice 
of free-thinkers in the last century, in an ironical or 
sarcastic vein, not unfrequently refer to faith as some- 
thing too sacred to rest on proof. Thus religious 
beliefs are made to hang in mid-air, without any 
support. But the foundation of these beliefs is no 
less solid for the reason that empirical tests are not 
applicable to them. The data on which they rest 
are real, and the inferences from the data are fairly 
drawn. 

The first peculiarity of the truth accepted by faith 
is, then, the absence of the external or experimental 
sort of proof in confirmation of it. In addition to 
this peculiarity, the truths of religion, while they 
are of the character just described, summon the mind 
to a forth-putting of energy in an extraordinary de- 
gree. An exertion of will is requisite. Take the 
fundamental truth of religion, the existence of a 
personal God. The proofs of the being of God are 

so strong that they would suffice to produce con- 

10 



146 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

viction in every reasonable mind if the proposition 
were not one so amazing in its nature. To accept 
it and rest in it requires a certain energy of trust. 
" This principle of trust," says Mozley, " is faith, — 
the same principle by which we repose in a witness 
of good character who informs us of a marvellous 
occurrence — so marvellous that the trust in his tes- 
timony has to be sustained by a certain effort of the 
reasonable will." The timidity of reason has to be 
overcome by a courageous exercise of will. In ap- 
propriating or making our own the things of faith, 
there is a venture to be made on the ground of the 
evidence without the stimulus and support of an ap- 
peal to the senses. In matters of the highest mo- 
ment which affect our destiny, we have to go upon 
trust, — a reasonable trust, to be sure, yet requiring 
to be maintained even in the face of impressions 
seemingly adverse to it, which come in through the 
senses. Now, unless the phenomena which are the 
reasonable ground of faith, and which pertain on 
the one side to our moral and spiritual experience, 
are vividly apprehended, the soul will be too timid 
to make the venture. The stake is too great, the 
issue too momentous. We are called upon to take 
a leap in the dark, without seeing what our feet are 
to touch. There is proof enough, but there is a 
seeming conflict with the senses. The elements of 
uncertainty are at once exaggerated. Courage gives 
way. Many people are afraid in the dark, out of 
doors and in their own homes, even when they know 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 147 

that there is no rational ground for apprehension. 
Infidelity is a species of cowardice. 

In a charming passage of the Phsedo, Socrates, 
after much wise talk about the future life, says : " To 
affirm positively that all is exactly as I have described, 
would not befit a man of sense. But since the soul 
is evidently immortal, that this or something like it 
is true of our souls and their future habitations, — 
this I think it does befit him to believe, and it is 
worth risking his faith upon, for the risk is a glori- 
ous one indeed." And then later, when Crito in- 
quires, " ' How do you wish us to bury you V ' Just 
as you please,' he answered, ' if you only get hold 
of me and do not let me escape you.' And quietly 
laughing, and glancing at us, he said : ' I cannot per- 
suade Crito, my friends, that this Socrates who is 
now talking with you and laying down each one of 
these propositions is my very self ; for his mind is 
full of the thought that I am he whom he is to see 
in a little while as a corpse ; and so he asks how he 
shall bury me.' " 

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews enumerates a 
list of heroes of faith, — Abraham, Moses, and the 
others. Their faith nerved them to risk everything 
without fear as to the result. It was not an irrational 
confidence. Had it been a groundless trust, their 
bravery would have been mere foolhardiness. Their 
distinction was that they had the energy to act upon 
an expectation which, though reasonable in its char- 
acter, ran counter to all the appearances. Not with- 



148 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

out truth has it been said of heroism in general, that 
it partakes of a supernatural quality. 

A number of years ago I read an account of a 
visit made by the Prince of Wales in company with 
an eminent man of science to a great iron foundry. 
They stood together by a stream of molten iron flow- 
ing slowly out of the smelting furnace. " Do you 
believe in science?" said his companion to the Prince. 
" I do," was the reply. " Then thrust your moistened 
finger into that stream." The Prince at once divided 
the stream with his finger, and the finger was not 
harmed. Whether this particular incident occurred 
or not, the same thing is not infrequently done by 
workmen in foundries. On the instant of the con- 
tact of the hand with the fiery liquid there ensues 
what the scientific men call " the spheroidal state." 
The sudden evaporation is somehow attended by a 
repellency that perfectly shields the flesh for the 
moment from contact with the burning substance 
through which it passes. A learned professor has 
related to me that having had occasion to refer in 
a popular lecture to the principle of the " spheroidal 
state," and to explain how a stream of molten iron 
could be thus parted by the naked hand with im- 
punity, a lad among his hearers informed him that 
his father, a workman in a foundry near by, had 
often done it. The lecturer repaired to the place, 
and the workman repeated the experiment in his 
presence ; but in reply to an inquiry, informed him 
that the other workmen were afraid to do it. The 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 149 

professor to whom I refer has more than once cut 
with his finger the glowing stream as it flowed out 
in a slow current from the heated furnace. 

We may suppose a person to understand the princi- 
ple of the " spheroidal state," and how it is that the 
hand, with only the ordinary amount of natural 
moisture upon it, can be safely passed through such 
a current. Nevertheless, he might shrink from mak- 
ing the experiment. The sight of the molten liquid 
might induce a recoil which his faith in the principle 
would not suffice to overcome. Even in the case to 
which I have referred, the workmen who saw one of 
their companions try the experiment again and again, 
were kept back by a certain timidity from following 
his example. An unwonted energy, an unwonted 
boldness, are requisite to neutralize the impression 
made on the mind through the senses, let reason say 
what it will. 

It follows that there are grades of faith. We read 
in the Gospel of Mark that a father who had brought 
his poor diseased child to Christ, " said with tears, 
' Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief.' " The 
Evangelist Luke records the fact that the Disciples 
of Jesus came to him with the prayer, " Increase our 
faith." The petition implies that there is a diffi- 
culty in believing. Many Christian disciples of later 
times have found it to be so, both in respect to that 
general faith in Gccl's presence, power, and love 
which the Apostles then had specially in mind, and 
in respect to trust in the revelation of his mercy 



150 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

through Christ. Where there is intellectual assent, 
another element must be mixed with it to constitute 
faith , Why do we not feel that God is near us and 
with us ; that not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
out him ; that he really pities and cares for us ; that 
he will provide for us ; that he loves us even when he 
makes us suffer ; that he can make all things which 
occur to work together for our good ; that nations, 
like individuals, are in his hand ? Why do we not 
feel that if we are stripped of all earthly good, he can 
more than make up the loss to us ; that in his favor 
there is life in the highest sense, — true joy ? In a 
word, why is not God more real to us ? How near 
is the Power on which we depend for life and breath 
and all things ! How narrow, after all, is the space 
that is open to the action of our wills ! Its bounda- 
ries are close upon us, and on every side is God ! 
The place and time of our birth, our personal charac- 
teristics, the outward circumstances of our life, the 
results of our plans and endeavors, the length of our 
days, all — save the limited effects left contingent 
upon our choice — are determined by God. Man pro- 
poses, but God disposes. He is without us, ordering 
the course of events. He is within, speaking through 
conscience. He hems us in on every side, and con- 
fronts us at every turn. Why should he be to us as 
if he were not ? 

No doubt the considerations already brought for- 
ward may suggest a partial answer to the question. 
We live in a world of sense, and the world of sense 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 151 

abides with us early and late. We live in the midst 
of things seen and temporal. The material aspect of 
human existence is constantly before us. On every 
hand is the appalling spectacle of human decay and 
death. The generations come and go, carried away 
" as by a flood." After all. however, this explanation 
of the dulness of faith appears inadequate. It does 
not go to the root. We believe in a thousand things 
that we do not see. The past history of the world I 
did not myself witness. I believe in the existence of 
a million stars which I have never beheld. But 
these, it may be said, are in their own nature visible. 
But heat is invisible ; the force of gravity is invisible. 
Yet we believe in these. We believe that the men 
and women about us have souls, although we have 
never seen them, nor are they capable of being seen ; 
for — 

" We are spirits clad in veils, 

Man by man was never seen ; 

All our deep communing fails 

To remove the shadowy screen." 

Why should the visible scene around us intercept the 
view of God instead of manifesting him ? When we 
look within, when in a truthful spirit we inquire 
before the bar of our own judgment in what spirit we 
have lived, and when we contemplate mankind ear- 
nestly in their present condition and their past 
history, we have to confess that human nature is 
afflicted with a malady, which yet is not properly 
called a malady, since men accuse themselves and 



152 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

blame themselves on account of it and on account of 
the multiform types of wrong-doing that spring out 
of it, as fruits from a tree. We may leave it, if we 
choose, to philosophers and to theologians to discuss 
the origin of sin, how it spread, and the grounds of 
personal responsibility for it. Of the fact of sin there 
can be no question. In one of Professor Huxley's 
recent excursions into the field of theology he drops 
for a moment from his usually confident and almost 
elated mood into a more pensive strain. I quote the 
paragraph, printing however, two or three words in 
a type that will call to them special attention : — 

" I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as 
that of the evolution of humanity as it is set forth in the 
annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric 
ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin 
strong upon him. He is a brute only more intelligent 
than the other brutes ; a blind prey to impulses which as 
often as not lead him to destruction ; a victim to endless 
illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a 
burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and 
battle. He retains a degree of physical comfort, and 
develops a more or less workable theory of life, in such 
favorable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia and of 
Egypt, and then, for thousands and thousands of years, 
struggles with varying fortunes, attended by infinite 
wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to maintain himself 
at this point against the greed and the ambition of his 
fellow-men. He makes a point of killing and otherwise 
persecuting all those who first try to get him to move on ; 
and when he has moved on a step, foolishly confers post- 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 153 

mortem deification on his victims. He exactly repeats 
the process with all who want to step yet farther. And 
the best men of the best epochs are simply those who 
make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins." 

How much truth there is in this vivid picture of 
the past of mankind is plain to all thoughtful persons. 
What is worthy of note is that along with what is said 
of the " evolution of humanity," and notwithstanding 
the apparent sanction given to that unproved type of 
evolutionary theory which makes man at the start 
nothing but an intelligent brute, there is still a per- 
ception that his career is something more than a 
chapter in natural history ; that is, moral history 
is not completely metamorphosed into natural history. 
There has been " infinite wickedness." Nay, more ; 
the most that can be claimed for the " best " of men 
is that they " commit the fewest sins." Has the 
brilliant naturalist ever pondered what is involved in 
these unquestioned facts ? Has he ever grasped them 
in their full purport, and sought to understand what 
they presuppose respecting the race of mankind ? Is 
he wise enough to be sure that the solution of them 
in the Scriptures, and the Christian explanation of 
the radical source of the " bloodshed and misery," the 
k - greed and ambition," the " endless illusions " on 
which he dwells so pathetically, is not after all the 
most philosophical and satisfactory of all solutions ? 
Grant that sin, in its origin and diffusion, and the 
union of individual responsibility and guilt with a 
common moral depravity coextensive with the race, 



134: NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

involves mystery. May it not be, as Coleridge has 
said, the one mystery that makes all things else clear ? 
Grant that even when sin is perceived to be the root 
of misery, it is hard fully to explain the slowness of 
the divine process of recovery and redemption, yet 
the gravest difficulty is taken out of the way ; a dark 
shadow is removed from the character of God and his 
administration. 

The paragraph which I have quoted from Professor 
Huxley recalls a striking passage from the pen of a 
most gifted man, but a man quite different in the 
cast of his thoughts from the distinguished natural- 
ist. The passage which follows is extracted from the 
" Apologia " of John Henry Newman. After speak- 
ing of the certainty which he has of the being of God, 
on the ground of the inward testimonies of heart and 
conscience, he adds : — 

"Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in 
my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist or a 
pantheist or a polytheist when I looked into the world. I 
am speaking for myself only, and I am far from denying 
the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn 
from the general facts of human society ; but these do 
not warm me or enlighten me ; they do not take away 
the- winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold 
and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being re- 
joice. The sight of the world is nothing else than the 
prophet's scroll, full of ' lamentations and mourning 
and woe.' 

" To consider the world in its length and breadth, the 
many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 155 

mutual alienations, their conflicts ; . . . the greatness 
and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short 
duration, the curtain hung over his futurity ; the disap- 
pointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of 
evil, physical pain, moral anguish, the prevalence and 
intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries ; the dreary, 
hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race so 
perfectly yet exactly described in the Apostle's words 
(' having no hope, and without God in the world '), — all 
this is a vision to dizzy and appall, and inflicts upon the 
mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is abso- 
lutely beyond human solution. 

"What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason- 
bewildering fact? . . . Did I see a boy of good make 
and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined nature, 
cast upon the world without provision, unable to say 
whence he came, his birthplace, his family connections, 
I should conclude that there was some mystery connected 
with his history, and that he was one of whom, from one 
cause or other, his parents were ashamed. . . . And so 
I argue about the world ; if there be a God, since there 
is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible 
aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes 
of its Creator. This is a fact, — a fact as true as the 
fact of its existence ; and thus the doctrine of what is 
theologically called original sin becomes to me almost 
as certain as that the world exists, and as the existence 
of God." 

I have not quoted the whole of these impressive 
paragraphs of Newman, but I have quoted enough to 
show the points of strong resemblance between this 
description of the feelings excited by a calm survey 



156 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of men and their history, and that given in the cita- 
tion from Professor Huxley. If Newman inserts in 
the dark catalogue " the prevalence and intensity of 
sin," the phrase is equivalent to the "infinite wicked- 
ness," the contemplation of which saddens the mind 
of Huxley. But the difference is that the theologian 
does not suffer that most terrible fact of evil, involv- 
ing guilt, which exhibits itself everywhere in human 
history, — a fact in its very nature abnormal; the 
abnormal character of which cannot be denied with- 
out a denial of the fact itself, — to be lightly passed 
by. He sees in it, in the universality of transgres- 
sion, proof that in some inscrutable way the race has 
made shipwreck of itself. There is a source — how- 
ever incapable it may be of full explication — of this 
corruption, which, be it never forgotten, is not physi- 
cal, but is moral and culpable. There must be a fons 
et origo malorum. Writers of the class of Professor 
Huxley can see and acknowledge the " infinite wick- 
edness " of the world, and designate it by its right 
name. They can see that the only merit of " the best 
men of the best epochs " is that they " commit the 
fewest sins." They call them " sins," and distinguish 
them from " blunders." They confess with pain that 
immoralities and crimes make up a great part of the 
annals of mankind. Theorizing about "the evolu- 
tion of humanity " has to reconcile itself, somehow or 
other, with human responsibility and with the appal- 
ling moral depravity which has spread over the race. 
It is seen clearly enough that to seek to turn, by any 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 157 

hocus-pocus of speculation, whether physical or meta- 
physical, evil into good, to transmute sin into some- 
thing not base or blameworthy, is to undertake to 
paralyze conscience and to undermine the moral basis 
of society. So here remains the awful fact of sin, 
and of a common sin, or of sin that is common. 
Here is the fact which Professor Huxley terms the 
" infinite ivickedness" that is and has been in the world 
since men began to exist in it. Here is the reason 
why Professor Huxley, and every other man who hon- 
estly goes through an act of self-judgment, is obliged 
to bow his head like the publican in the parable. 

Sin being an undeniable fact, and being in its na- 
ture an element of disorder, that our perception of 
God and of things, spiritual should be to a certain 
degree darkened by the perversion of the will in its 
inmost inclination, by the " infinite wickedness " 
which Professor Huxley deplores, and of which he 
truly says that the "best men of the best epochs" 
partake, is what might naturally be expected. 

Light is thus thrown on the psychology of doubt 
and disbelief. We have to take account of the fact 
that we have fallen into a habit of mind discordant 
with our nature, — that better nature which is affili- 
ated to God; and one effect of this perversion is to 
obscure the discernment of things supernatural. The 
life of self which we lead, and which Christ under- 
took to destroy ; the habit of living to the world 
and of placing our chief good, and seeking the sat- 
isfaction of the spirit, within the bounds of created 



158 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

nature, — is the radical source of unbelief. We have 
not liked to retain God in our knowledge. Herschel 
remarks of the cosmic system as revealed by astron- 
omy that it is directly opposed to the ordinary con- 
ception of men. To them the earth is the centre ; 
the sun moves in a circle around it ; the starry heav- 
ens are a canopy stretched over it. Science contra- 
dicts and upsets this natural view of things. But not 
more than the truth of religion subverts that habit 
of thought in which the soul is self-centred and the 
world is looked upon as tributary to its gratification. 
It is a dictum of common-sense, as well as a word of 
the Lord, that the heart will be where its treasure is. 
Can it be considered strange that the course of our 
mental life — the currents of thought and feeling — 
should be adjusted to the natural order within which, 
exclusively, our affections find their chosen objects, 
and above which our desires and aspirations do not 
rise ? The laws of association by which the process 
of our thoughts is determined, keep the attention 
upon the object of the heart's love. As to all that 
lies beyond, the vividness of our ideas, and event- 
ually even our beliefs, are subject to the same in- 
fluence. The perceptions that engender faith are 
wanting. The sense of dependence, humility in the 
room of self-assertion, the craving for something 
higher than earthly good, the sharp rebukes of con- 
science, are absent. Faith is a plant that cannot 
spring up in so barren a soil. One might as well 
hope to impart science to one void of curiosity and 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 159 

without any true sense of the value of knowledge. 
Receptivity of one kind or another is the door of 
access for all higher good. 

If there be such a hindrance to the exercise of faith 
in general, a peculiar obstacle interferes with trust in 
the revelation of the love of God in the religion of the 
Gospel. In this branch of the discussion it is perti- 
nent to refer to the well-known phenomena of Chris- 
tian experience. There is an abundance of testimony, 
in the history of the Church and in Christian biog- 
raphy, to sustain the remarks which are to follow. 
To facts of this nature the class whom Newman 
somewhere denominates " mere men of letters " may 
think it beneath them to attend. Not so will judge 
wise and candid students of human nature, be their 
creed what it may. 

It often happens that when the habit of worldliness 
is partially broken up, and self-reproach is awakened, 
the feeling of unworthiness makes it hard to look 
upon God in any other light than that of a judge. 
Like Luther in his earlier days, we are inclined to 
think of Christ as having come into the world to con- 
demn rather than to save. He seems to be a second 
Moses, only tenfold more rigid and austere than the 
first. We read the Sermon on the Mount, and find 
no difficult v in belie vino- what he savs of the ria;or of 
the law, the ideal of obligation, — penetrating to the 
inmost thought of the heart, — finding in unrighteous 
anger the seed-principle of murder. We believe all 
this ; but we do not so easily believe in the assurance 



160 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

that he is meek and lowly in heart, that " the bruised 
reed he will not break." The invitation to come unto 
him and find rest is heard with a kind of distrust. 
There is a common saying that it is hard to forgive 
those whom we have injured. Certainly we are apt 
to imagine them to feel unkindly towards us. A 
sense of ill-desert banishes men from God the more 
effectually because they know it to be a true and 
right feeling, and know that if they condemn their 
sin God condemns it even more. Such is the effect 
of the moral ideal brought within the pale of con- 
sciousness. But the law reveals man to himself ; it 
does not reveal God to man save partially and in one 
relation. He is more than law and justice and holi- 
ness. There is a mercifulness deeper than all. He 
loves his enemies ; and we are exhorted in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount to copy his example by doing good 
to those who treat us ill. " God commendeth his love 
to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died 
for us." Yet, notwithstanding this manifestation of 
the love of God, and of his willingness to forgive the 
ill-deserving, the sense of guilt and of shame at the 
lives we have led may hinder us from believing in 
him. The Prodigal Son, when he resolved to go back 
to his father, only thought to apply for the place of a 
servant. " Make me as one of thy hired servants," — 
that should be his prayer. That was the extent of his 
hope. But when, weary, foot-sore, and famished, he 
caught sight of his father, hastening to meet him, and 
saw that his heart was full of love and pity, he forgot 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 161 

this part of his intended petition. He did not beg to 
be made a servant. All his dread was dispelled. 

Now that we have glanced at the principal hin- 
drances in the way of believing, it will not be wan- 
dering from our subject to inquire by what means 
faith may be increased. 

Not by the mere exercise of the understanding, — 
the inquisitive and reasoning faculty. The under- 
standing, it has been all along implied, has its rights 
in matters of religion. We cannot be required to 
believe anything in conflict with the dictates of sound 
reason. But when men talk of reason and of a sup- 
posed conflict between Christianity and reason, it is 
important to inquire what precisely is signified by the 
term. Whose reason is meant ? Is it the reason of 
an immature mind ? Is it reason warped by preju- 
dice, heated by passion, or blinded by conceit and 
self -admiration ? A conflict between reason as thus 
described and the Christian system is of no significance 
in opposition to the latter. When we speak of the 
accordance of Christianity with reason, we mean 
the reason of a right-minded man whose intellectual 
vision is purified. We mean reason regenerated. The 
Christian cause need not shrink from answering to a 
tribunal thus qualified for passing judgment. In the 
case of an historical religion like Christianity, we have 
a right to examine the testimony to the facts offered 
to our credence. To attribute all sorts of doubt and 
questioning to an evil heart is quite unwarrantable. 
To condemn dissent from the tenets or interpretations 

11 



162 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of a particular sect or school, as if it were infallible, 
is arrogant. At the same time our convictions of 
religious truth do not take their rise in the under- 
standing. Define it as you will, there is such a thing 
as spiritual discernment. A quickened receptivity 
develops an insight analogous to higher perceptions 
in the province of Poetry and Art. There are truths 
which shine in their own light. They impress the 
soul directly with the evidence of their reality. They 
will sometimes flash on the mind after long waiting 
and fruitless groping in the dark. Christ did not say : 
Blessed are men of genius ; blessed are those who 
have the ability and leisure for investigation ; blessed 
are the keen logicians. But he said : " Blessed are 
the poor in spirit ;" " Blessed are the pure in heart ;" 
" Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness." He took a little child and placed him in 
the midst of his Disciples, as an example of the hu- 
mility required for admission into his kingdom. His 
first followers were not distinguished for their intel- 
lectual powers. They were unlearned men. It is 
found — in these days not infrequently — that men 
eminent for their intellectual powers and acquire- 
ments are unbelievers. Numerous examples, to be 
sure, of faith on the part of men equally eminent — 
men like Kepler, Leibnitz, Newton, Faraday — are 
not wanting. But apart from striking examples of 
the power of Christianity to convince the most power- 
ful minds, no Christian believer has any occasion to 
be disquieted for the reason that men excelling in 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 163 

science or scholarship stand aloof from the Gospel, or 
even if they profess atheism. If the secret of un- 
belief, or its inmost source, be the alienation of the 
heart from God, what is there in mere intellectual 
culture to furnish a remedy ? A man may not be 
cured of a moral distemper by getting knowledge, any 
more than by getting fame or getting money. 

Two things are to be borne in mind. In the first 
place, there is abundant evidence that an awakening 
of conscience, or a quickening of moral sensibility in 
any form, will often dissipate doubt, and create an 
inward assurance in another way than by the solving 
of intellectual problems. It is frequently seen, also, 
that the understanding, even when its path is made 
smooth, its difficulties cleared up, its hard questions 
answered, does not engender faith. A negative work 
is accomplished, but perhaps nothing more. The 
bark is all ready to move on the waters, the sails are 
spread, but there is no breeze to fill them. To break 
through the bonds of nature, and lay hold of the 
supernatural, — that all our reasonings do not lend 
us the power to do. Fetters have been shaken off 
which held us to the earth, but no wings have been 
given on which to soar aloft. Light has come, but 
not life. 

Logic alone cannot develop faith ; but more is to 
be hoped from that kind of thoughtfulness which 
tends to detach the heart from earthly good. He who 
learns how insufficient the world is for the soul, will 
be prepared to turn to something higher. For this 



164 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

reason, in a multitude of instances, trouble has proved 
to be a school of faith. One who has trusted in riches, 
but who is despoiled of them and reduced to poverty, 
looks about for something more substantial to rest 
upon. One who has made a god of reputation, but 
becomes, either with or without his fault, unpopular 
and odious, or obscure and forgotten, is naturally 
prompted to seek for a good more satisfying and more 
lasting than the breath of human praise. How many 
have learned more of God in one hour of bitter sor- 
row, when bereaved of those who made a part of their 
life, than they had learned in years of study ! They 
open the Bible, and meet there messages from the 
Unseen which before had fallen on listless ears. 
Bowed down with grief, they hear the sweet and 
majestic words, " He hath sent me to bind up the 
broken-hearted ! '* When the light goes out on the 
hearthstone, when nothing meets the eye but tokens 
left behind by those gone from us, no more to return, 
then perchance we lift our eyes from the darkened 
earth, and lo ! like the patriarch of old, we see the 
heavens radiant with stars not seen in the glare of 
day. Out of anguish that seemed unbearable, out of 
paroxysms of grief, out of the long hours of dull pain, 
are plucked fruits precious enough to outweigh the 
suffering which they cost. The soul is brought a 
little nearer to God. Saints there have been who 
have welcomed pain. Pascal prayed : " If the world 
rilled up the affections of my heart while I was in 
bodily vigor, let that vigor be laid low if my spiritual 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 165 

good require it ! . . . Dispose of me altogether as 
thou shalt see best ! Replenish or impoverish me 
as thou wilt ! But conform my will to thine ; and 
enable me, in an humble and entire submission, and 
a holy confidence, to wait thy providential guidance, 
and to acquiesce in thy gracious disposal ! " 

It is sometimes made a reproach to religion that 
it is the refuge of the weak, the disappointed, the 
desponding. But the question is whether the realities 
of existence are not more truly discerned from the 
point of view gained by such, — whether the mental 
vision is not clearer. 

Not long after the death of his wife, Thomas 
Carlyle wrote to his friend, Erskine of Linlathen, as 
follows : — 

" ' Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy 
name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,' — what else 
can we say ? The other night, in my sleepless tossings 
about, which were growing more and more miserable, 
these words, that brief and grand prayer, came strangely 
into my mind, with an altogether new emphasis, as if 
written and shining for me in mild pure splendor on the 
black bosom of the night there ; when I, as it were, read 
them, word by word, with a sudden check to my imper- 
fect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure 
that was most unexpected. Not perhaps for thirty or 
forty years had I ever formally repeated that prayer ; 
nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of man's 
soul it is, — the inmost aspiration of all that is high and 
pious in poor human nature ; right worthy to be recom- 
mended with an, ' After this manner pray ye.' " 



166 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

How did Carlyle come to see what he had never 
seen before, and to feel what he had never before felt ? 
Have the teachers of the Church in all ages been so 
far astray when, following Christ and the Apostles, 
they have talked of blindness of mind and of spirit- 
ual light ? 

Another effective mode of promoting faith is obe 
dience, even if, owing to the dulness of the organ of 
hearing, one hears bat faintly the voice of him who 
commands. With obedience there begins a rectifica- 
tion of the will, and a quickening of the power of 
discernment will follow. We are then steering by the 
right star, albeit we dimly perceive it. No man has 
any assurance that he will discover religious truth 
unless he has first made up his mind to live by it- 
It is ordained that we shall feel our way in religion. 
Tiie truth of religion is bread for the hungry ; we 
must " taste and see " that the Lord is good. Even 
more important is it to bear in mind that the gates 
of light are shut to him who is not bent upon 
walking in the light. " He that will [or rather, 
willeth to] do my will shall know of the doctrine 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of my- 
self." Here, not thinking, but doing, is made the 
road to knowledge. 

Another means of increasing faith is the contempla- 
tion of Christ. Wherever men are to be lifted above 
the ordinary plane of character and achievement, 
there is need of the inspiration of personal leadership. 
The history of every nation's deliverance from peril 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 167 

or from degradation illustrates this truth. The high- 
est of all illustrations is afforded in Christianity. 
Christ came to draw men out of the life of unbelief 
into a fellowship with himself, — a fellowship in his 
own spiritual life of communion with the Father. 
Here on earth he himself lived by faith. We are in- 
vited to look to him as the Author and Finisher of 
our faith. The word here rendered " Author " is the 
same as that which stands for " Captain " where he 
is called "the Captain of our salvation," and means 
both example and forerunner. He is the " Author," 
or forerunner, in faith, since by looking forward to the 
joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising 
the shame. His victory on the cross was by faith, — 
a faith which he would fain impart to us. He replied 
to the Tempter that man does not live by bread alone, 
but by every word of God. He thanked the Father 
for choosing humble men to be his disciples, because 
it seemed good in the Father's sight. Faith upheld 
him in the garden when he said : " Nevertheless, not 
as I will, but as thou wilt ; " and on the cross when 
he said : " Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." 
He is the vine ; we are the branches. By looking to 
him, we become partakers of his inward life, — the life 
of faith, as well as of holiness and peace. If his com- 
munion with God was a real thing and not a mockery 
and a delusion, then all that is presupposed in that 
communion is also real. He inspires with faith by 
his own example. 

The last and principal means of deepening faith, to 



168 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

be adverted to, is prayer. The Disciples came to 
Jesus with the supplication : " Increase our faith." 
Mere thinking and striving will not avail. Christ 
thanked the Father for the faith of the Disciples 
because it was the Father who had hidden these 
things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them 
unto babes. Of Peter's fervent avowal of faith in 
him as the Son of God he said : " Flesh and blood 
have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which 
is in heaven." Whoever seeks to enliven his own 
faith, or the faith of others in whom he is interested, 
finds out by experiment that thought and argument 
and entreaty do not suffice. Light must come from 
the Source of light. Nothing is left but to resort 
directly to God, — 

" No help but prayer, — 
A breath that fleets beyond this iron world 
And touches him that made it." 

And here there is a well-founded assurance that 
none apply to God in vain. There is one prayer that 
may be offered with an absolute certainty that the 
very thing sought for will be granted. With respect 
to everything else, in our limited knowledge of what 
is best for us, we have to connect with each petition 
an acknowledgment of submission to the divine will 
and wisdom. We implore God to give, but to with- 
hold, should it seem to him best. But to the prayer 
for the enlightening Spirit of God no proviso need be 
appended. The doctrine of a divine influence even 



REVELATION AND FAITH. 169 

the most enlightened heathen have found no diffi- 
culty in accepting. It is declared, without qualifica- 
tion, in the Scriptures that God is willing to give 
his Spirit to them who ask. We can apply to him, 
if there be in us faith enough to go to him at all, 
confident that we shall receive the very thing that 
we desire for ourselves. He can open the eyes of 
the blind. He can touch the soul with his own mys- 
terious, life-giving Spirit, and quicken it to a per- 
ception of realities now dim and shadowy. He is 
willing to do that. " Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, 
and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
you." Whoever is baffled by mysteries that he can- 
not unravel, and confused by problems that he cannot 
solve, can approach God as a child, and ask the Father 
to teach him. 

Poor Hartley Coleridge wrote these lines, out of a 
heart surcharged with suffering : — - 

" Be not ashamed to pray : to pray is right. 
Pray, if thou canst, with hope ; but ever pray, 
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay. 
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. 

Pray to be perfect, though material leaven 
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be. 

But if for any wish thou darest not pray, 
Then pray to God to cast that wish away." 

The truly great poets are the profoundest preachers. 
These are words of Tennyson : — 



170 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

" More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? " 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 



I. 



REMARKS ON THE AUTHORSHIP AND DATE 
OF THE GOSPELS. 

It is well known that of the four documents which 
constitute the authorities for the life of Jesus, the 
first three Gospels, which are called the Synoptics, 
belong- together in a group, and that the Fourth Gos- 
pel, having marked peculiarities in distinction from 
them, stands by itself. 

It is a familiar fact to all who have looked atten- 
tively at the Synoptics that they contain a good deal 
of matter in common. Beyond what is comprised in 
all three, there is also a" portion of material that each 
couple in the three pairs of Synoptical writings share, 
and more or less matter besides, that each author pre- 
sents exclusively. In the matter which is common 
to the three or to either two, the language employed 
is to a large extent identical, although at the same 
time there are not wanting dissimilarities in words 
as well as in the details of the narrative. The rela- 



174 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

tion of the three documents to one another suggests 
questions as to their origin which are not less im- 
portant than curious. The three writers must have 
drawn from a common source or sources. Were these 
sources, or the main source, oral tradition, or tradi- 
tion previously existing in a written form? Were the 
three authors dependent upon one another ; and if so, 
which were the borrowers ? Where does the relative 
priority belong ? 

It was long the prevalent opinion that Mark is the 
youngest, and is little more than an abridgment of 
Matthew and Luke. One of the last defenders of this 
theory was Bleek, a scholar of great learning and 
ability, and of eminent candor. It was a plausible 
view. Here is one of the parallelisms which he 
adduces : — 

" And when even was come." — Matt. viii. 16. 

" And at even when the sun was set." — Mark i. 32. 

" And when the sun was setting." — Luke iv. 40. 

In the original, the words quoted above from Mat- 
thew, and the first clause of Mark — "and at even" 
— are precisely the same ; and the expression in Luke 
(except that it is in the participial form) is identi- 
cal with the second phrase in Mark. At the first 
glance it would seem that Mark had combined the 
two statements. Nevertheless a further comparison 
of the Gospels makes it clear that this is not the fact. 
In the judgment of almost all scholars at present, 
Mark is the independent narrator. Either Matthew 






AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 175 

and Luke draw what they contain of " the triple tra- 
dition " directly from him, or from a source on which 
the three are in common dependent. That the first of 
these suppositions is the correct one, is at present the 
conclusion of most of the ablest critics. We have to 
guard, however, against fallacious inferences from the 
phenomena just described. There are such inferences 
in the Article by Dr. Edwin A. Abbott on the Gos- 
pels, in the " Encyclopedia Britannica." He speaks of 
" the triple tradition " as if it were the original, or the 
one specially, if not exclusively, trustworthy tradition. 
His erroneous implications are well exposed by Dr. 
Salmon in his " Introduction to the New Testament." 
" It is obvious that the phrases ' triple tradition,' 'two- 
fold tradition,' express phenomena as they appear to 
us, not things as they are in themselves. You would 
feel that a man knew very little of astronomy if he 
spoke of the full moon and the half moon and the new 
moon in such a way as to lead one to think that he 
took these for three distinct heavenly bodies, and not 
for the same body differently illuminated. . . . When 
one of our authorities fails, we must not assume with- 
out examination that the two remaining ones are now 
deriving their narrative from some new source." The 
matter which two of the Evangelists alone present, or 
even one alone, may be from a source as old as that 
at the basis of Mark's narrative. If Mark was writ- 
ten first, as is now the prevalent view, the other Evan- 
gelists may have taken up the matter which was thus 
at hand, and connected with it, from sources equally 



176 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

trustworthy and equally old with the sources of Mark, 
their additional narratives. The story of the cruci- 
fixion as told by Luke is independent of that as told 
by Matthew and Mark. Here the " double tradition" 
is of just the same value as if it had been " triple ; " 
and the accounts given by Luke are not shown to 
emanate from later authorities, on account of his 
independence of the two other Evangelists. 

There is no reason to distrust the early uncontra- 
dicted tradition, which is first on record from Papias, 
Bishop of Hierapolis, that the author of the Second 
Gospel was Mark, — the same who was at one time a 
companion of Paul in his journeys, — who set down 
accounts of the life of the Lord which he had heard 
from the lips of Peter. 

The same Papias, a contemporary of the martyr 
Polycarp (who died at a very advanced age in 155 
or 156), says that Matthew wrote his book in He- 
brew, — meaning Aramaic, the dialect then spoken 
in Palestine. With this statement the early eccle- 
siastical writers concur. That such was the fact, 
is believed by most critical scholars now; although 
there are some who still think that Matthew wrote 
in Greek. But there is a more important question in 
relation to the First Gospel. Did Matthew's Writing, 
whether it were originally in Aramaic or in Greek, 
comprise all the contents of the present Gospel ? Or 
is the narrative portion, in distinction from the dis- 
courses of Jesus, a supplement incorporated with Mat- 
thew's Writing by another hand ? If it is to be held 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 177 

that Matthew's Writing was enlarged by another, do 
the additions embrace the whole, or only a part, of 
the narrative matter ? That the Gospel in its pres- 
ent form has taken up additions of this character, 
is pretty generally conceded. English critics such 
as Dr. Westcott hold that in the transference of the 
Hebrew Gospel into the Greek, some additions were 
made by the Disciple, whoever he was, who gave out 
the Writing in its existing form. The prevalent 
view of the German critics since Schleiermacher is 
that Matthew's Writing consisted of the discourses 
merely, and that the rest of the Gospel was drawn 
from other sources, principally from Mark. Papias, to 
whose early testimony we must recur, says that Mat- 
thew wrote down, the Logia of the Lord. By Login 
— which may be translated Oracles — the critics to 
whom I refer understand " discourses," or teachings. 
This conclusion they affirm with decidely more pos- 
itiveness than the philological evidence warrants. 
This will appear to the candid student who will ex- 
amine what Bleek has written on the point, and es- 
pecially Bishop Lightfoot's discussion in his chapter 
on Papias. 1 Papias had in his hands the Greek Gos- 
pel as it now stands. This is a sure inference from 
the date when he wrote. But his own language im- 
plies that the use of the Hebrew Matthew was a thing 
of the past. Matthew, he says, wrote the Oracles 
in Hebrew, " and each one interpreted them as he 
could." The verb here is an aorist, and implies a 

1 Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 172 seq. 
12 



178 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

bygone state of things, a necessity for translating that 
no longer existed. If Papias knew that the Greek 
Gospel was an expansion, to a material extent, of the 
Hebrew Gospel, would he not have made mention of 
the fact ? And if he had mentioned it, would Euse- 
bius, in this case, where he is interested to explain 
the origin of Matthew's Gospel, have been silent re- 
specting it ? On the whole, it must be conceded that 
on philological grounds the restricted sense of Logia 
in the statement of Papias is not yet fully made out 
by the critics. But when we examine the First Gos- 
pel itself, the current of evidence as to its composite 
character runs the other way. We find that the 
teachings of Jesus are not set down with that meas- 
ure of chronological sequence which would have been 
expected from one of the Twelve in case he were aim- 
ing to produce a consecutive account of the Lord's 
ministry. The discourses are massed and grouped. 
And when the narrative portion of the Gospel is 
looked at, we encounter special difficulties attaching 
to the supposition of immediate Apostolic authorship. 
Not to multiply details, the meagre account of the 
Resurrection at the close is, to say the least, not 
what would be expected from one of the Twelve. 
But the dependence of a considerable portion of the 
narrative matter in Matthew upon Mark, it is con- 
tended by the critics, settles the question. Accord- 
ing to the modified hypothesis of Weiss, the Logia 
of Matthew did contain, here and there, historical 
notices. This supposition will account for occasional 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 179 

instances of priority in Matthew's historical state- 
ments, as compared with Mark, and also explain cer- 
tain other peculiarities in Mark, who is supposed to 
have had the Logia in his hands. 

Turning to the Third Gospel, we find at the begin- 
ning the assurance of the author, which it is unreas- 
onable to question, that he has made careful inquiries 
and brought together the information furnished him 
by eye-witnesses. This was partly oral, and partly in 
earlier written narratives. Traces of a written doc- 
ument are seen in the Hebraized diction of the first 
chapters, relating to the birth and infancy of Jesus. 
Tt is generally conceded that Mark's Gospel was one 
of the sources to which Luke resorted. Weiss is one 
of those who are confident that the Logia of Matthew 
was also used by Luke, and Meyer was of opinion that 
even the completed Matthew was occasionally con- 
sulted. This last opinion is disputed by Weiss ; and 
Weiss's own conclusion that the Logia was in Luke's 
hands, in the form in which the editor of the Greek 
Matthew took it up, or even that it was in his hands 
in any form, cannot be considered as yet established. 
The unity of the Third Gospel and of the Acts in style, 
demonstrates the identity of authorship. No satisfac- 
tory explanation of the passages in Acts where the 
first person plural is used — the " we-passages " — has 
been given, except that which makes them the pro- 
duct of the author's own pen, thus indicating that 
he was a fellow-traveller with the Apostle Paul. It 



180 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

is now proved to the satisfaction of all scholars that 
Marcion's Luke was an abridgment of the canonical 
Gospel, and not the basis of it. This latter theory, 
which was defended by the author of " Supernatural 
Religion," is quietly retracted in the preface to his 
later edition. Thus we have external proof, early in 
the second century, of the acceptance and established 
authority of the canonical Gospel of Luke among the 
churches. 

We are not without the means of determining 
within narrow limits the date of the Synoptical Gos- 
pels. The indications that they were written at about 
the time of the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, are 
unmistakable. At any considerably later date, the ap- 
parent conjunction of the fall of the city and of the 
temple with the Parousia would have been avoided or 
explained. We observe in Matthew, in the midst of 
the predictive discourse of Jesus, a parenthesis which 
it is more natural to suppose was thrown in by the 
author of the Gospel (Matt. xxiv. 15) : " When there- 
fore ye see the abomination of desolation, which was 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the 
holy place (let him that readeth understand)," etc. 
The last clause would appear to imply that the event 
referred to as a sign was imminent, or not far in the 
future. Everything favors the conclusion that the 
Gospel in the existing form appeared after the be- 
ginning of the mortal struggle of the Romans with 
the Jews, or between a. d. 65 and 70. Mark's Gospel 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 181 

was still earlier. The language of the passages rela- 
tive to the Parousia, in Luke, is consistent with the 
supposition that he wrote after the fall of Jerusalem, 
but not with the supposition that it was long after. 

The circumstance that Mark's Gospel is thought to 
have been one of the principal sources of the narra- 
tive matter in Matthew and in Luke, is fallaciously 
used to lessen comparatively the credit of these two 
authorities. Mark is cited by not a few as " the old- 
est authority," and the contents of his Gospel as " the 
earliest tradition," — only the Logia of Matthew be- 
ing older. But there is nothing to oblige us to sup- 
pose that the narrative matter in Luke (for example), 
which Mark does not contain, is from any " later " 
source than Mark's narrative. The long passage 
which belongs to Luke exclusively, from chapter ix. 
51 to chapter xviii. 14, embraces materials as trust- 
worthy and as " early " (if we look at the sources 
whence Luke derived them), as the accounts given by 
Mark. We know that Mark omitted the greater part 
of the sayings of Jesus which were in the Logia of 
Matthew. There is no doubt that he omitted to gather 
up a great deal besides, which another inquirer, like 
Luke, might have ascertained from " eye-witnesses 
and ministers of the word." To reject historical 
accounts, therefore, merely because they fire not com- 
prised in an historical sketch as brief as that of 
Mark, is quite without warrant. An instance of the 
error to which I advert is the hypothesis of those 
German critics who hold that Jesus did not distinctly 



182 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

profess to be the Messiah until the conversation with 
the Disciples at Caesarea Philippi (Mark viii. 27 seq.). 
This theory is thought to be supported by the doubt 
implied in the message of John the Baptist to Jesus. 
But the awakening of a question of this sort in John's 
mind is easily explained by the mere fact that there 
had been no such demonstration on the part of Jesus as 
John, with the ideas of the coming kingdom that still 
lingered in his mind, had looked for. It is a priori in 
the highest degree improbable that the Disciples at- 
tached themselves to Jesus, followed him about so 
long, and it may be added, heard how, as Mark him- 
self relates, he was addressed by demoniacs as the 
Christ, and yet had no definite impression as to who 
he really was, and neither asked questions nor received 
answers on this point, so interesting and momentous 
as they must have felt it to be. The confession of 
Peter, and the warm expression of approbation by 
Jesus that followed, are accounted for when it is re- 
membered that the course taken by him, so diverse 
from the popular idea of the Messiah, occasioned que- 
ries and debates as to whether he could be the Prom- 
ised One himself, and that Peter, despite any seeming 
evidence to the contrary, was inwardly convinced, and 
broke out in a fervent confession of faith. If we 
connect with the account of the conversation with the 
Disciples at Caesarea Philippi, John's explanation of 
the confession of Peter as having its occasion in the 
falling away of numerous Galilean followers (John 
vi. 66), we shall find a more full explanation of the 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 183 

reason for the question which Jesus, according to the 
Synoptics, addressed to the Twelve. The people were 
beginning to think that he was some other than the 
Messiah. The hypothesis that Jesus was perform- 
ing miracles and teaching incognito, even as regards 
his family of Disciples, is with difficulty reconcilable 
with the circumstances of his baptism, that epochal 
transaction, even if it be imagined that nothing then 
occurred except what Mark records. But there are 
no sound historical reasons to dissuade us from re- 
lying on the supplementary accounts of the other 
Synoptics. 

The Synoptical Gospels are confined in the main 
to the Galilean ministry of Jesus. The Apostles 
took up their abode at Jerusalem. There was the 
seat and centre of their earliest instructions. What 
had occurred in Jerusalem and the neighborhood, 
what belonged to the Judsean events in the life of 
Jesus, was familiar there, and could be easily learned 
by new converts. It was respecting the Galilean 
ministry that curiosity would especially need to be 
satisfied. Everything that we know on the subject 
points to the conclusion that the earliest tradition to 
be collected and crystallized related to this branch 
of the Saviour's public work. The Synoptics give us 
the Galilean tradition as it was formed and shaped at 
Jerusalem. 

We have .now to consider the state of the discus- 
sion concerning the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. 



184 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

It is a significant fact that the position taken by 
Baur, the leader, in recent times, of the assault upon 
its genuineness, has now, in two essential particulars, 
been generally given up. He placed, and it was 
necessary to his general scheme of historical and 
doctrinal development that he should place, the date 
of the Gospel as late as 160. How untenable this 
proposition is, those who sympathize with Baur's opin- 
ion that John was not the author, have united with 
their opponents in affirming. Whoever its author 
was, it must have been in use early in the second cen- 
tury. The opponents of its genuineness admit that 
130 is the latest date that can be assigned for its com- 
position. Baur maintained that the Gospel is a fiction 
in which the author was so absorbed in certain reli- 
gious ideas that he wove about them a garb of narra- 
tive, hardly conscious that he was framing a romance. 
Now, it is conceded that the Gospel includes tradi- 
tional materials respecting Jesus of real historical 
value. It is admitted that the book contains details 
which spring from personal recollection and acquaint- 
ance with the facts, and with respect to which there 
is no conceivable theological motive for their inser- 
tion. Why, to take a single example, should it be 
said (John i. 44), " Now, Philip was from Bethsaida" ? 
It is a favorite theory that the Fourth Gospel was 
composed by a disciple or disciples of the Apostle 
John, and includes more or less information actually 
derived from him. It is plain that Baur's conception 
of the nature of the work is shattered bv these new 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 185 

hypotheses respecting it. Whether the new ground 
is more tenable than the old, may be a question ; but 
there is no doubt that the ground at present taken 
by the negative criticism is new. 

The German critics have handled this disputed 
question with unsurpassed learning and ability. But 
they have too frequently failed to do justice to the 
external evidence for the Johannine authorship. To 
the majority of English scholars this defect in many 
of the German discussions is patent. The attempt of 
Keim, Holtzmann, and others to make it out that the 
Apostle John never lived in Asia Minor, is an ex- 
ample of this weakness as regards the estimate of 
the historical proofs. Because Irenasus thought that 
Papias was a disciple of John the Apostle, when pos- 
sibly he was not, although he was a disciple of John 
the Presbyter, it is inferred that Irenseus was talk- 
ing at cross purposes with his teacher, Polycarp, and 
imagined that he was giving reminiscences of the 
Apostle, when it was really the other John, the Pres- 
byter, to whom Poly carp's narratives related ! The 
difference is, as Weizsacker observes, that Irenseus 
was a personal acquaintance of Polycarp, but not of 
Papias. Of course there is an accumulation of proofs 
that John lived and died at Ephesus, Schiirer has 
shown a more judicial spirit in his remark on the 
notion of Keim : " For this assumption there appears 
to me to be no ground." But even Schiirer, a 
scholar to whom we generally look for sound judg- 
ments, in his recent Essay on " The Present State of 



186 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the Johannine Controversy " (from which the last 
quotation is taken), remarks : " But even though 
Irenaeus did hear Poly carp relate [what he had 
known] of the Apostle John, this is still no testi- 
mony for the Johannine origin of the Gospel." Mat- 
thew Arnold claims for the English mind a superior 
capacity for weighing evidence, — a quality which he 
attributes to long familiarity with the law of evidence 
in the English system of jurisprudence. ' It has been 
suggested that the law of evidence itself is not less 
a product than a cause of this judicial instinct. It 
would seem that there is some ground for this ob- 
servation of Arnold. It is a fact that Irenaeus in his 
early youth was acquainted with Poly carp. When 
Poly carp died (in 155 or 156), Irenaeus was a full- 
grown man. That he should say what he does of 
the four canonical Gospels as the four pillars of 
the Church, the foundation of the faith, having for 
their authors the two Apostles and the two com- 
panions of the Apostles, and yet that Polycarp knew 
nothing of one of these Gospels, the fourth, or did 
not consider it to be the work of the Apostle John, 
is incredible.' What was formerly without reason 
denied concerning Justin Martyr is now commonly 
admitted by the German critics. Hilgenfeld is among 
those who concede that Justin was acquainted with 
the Fourth Gospel. Yet even Schiirer expresses 
doubt as to whether it was one of the Apostolic 
" Memoirs," which are Justin's chief authorities. On 
this point the argument of Professor Norton, the 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 187 

substance of which is presented in Professor Ezra 
Abbot's admirable Essay on the " External Evidence 
for John's Gospel," is quite convincing. The " Me- 
moirs " of Justin are designated by him just as they 
are designated by Irenseus. They were composed by 
Apostles and their companions. They were read on 
Sunday in the churches in city and country. Irenaeus 
was in the vigor of life when Justin wrote. Yet we 
are invited to believe that the books referred to by 
Irenaeus as the established authorities are not the 
same as those described by Justin in almost identi- 
cal terms, and said by him to be publicly recognized 
and used. It may be added that the pretension 
that the Johannine passages in Justin were from the 
" Gospel of the Hebrews " or some other apocryphal 
source, is thoroughly confuted in Professor Abbot's 
Essay. 

In speaking of the external proofs of the Johannine 
authorship, it is worth while to notice how many 
recent discoveries there have been to add to their 
force. It was confidently declared that the Pseudo- 
Clementine Homilies contained no citations from the 
Fourth Gospel. The concluding portion of that work 
was discovered, and in it were found passages which 
are unquestionably from John. The lost work of 
Hippolytus, the Refutation of all Heresies, was discov- 
ered, and the use of the Fourth Gospel by one of the 
earliest of the Gnostic leaders, Basilides, was proved. 
That it is Basilides himself who is represented in 
Hippolytus as quoting and interpreting passages in 



188 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

John, has been convincingly shown by many writers, 
and among them by Matthew Arnold. It was stoutly 
contended that Tatian's Diatessaron was not com- 
pounded of the Four Gospels. The work and an 
ancient commentary upon it are brought to light, and 
the Diatessaron is found to begin with the opening 
verse of John. It turns out to be the work which the 
defenders of the genuineness of the Gospel had af- 
firmed it to be. Even the Didache, or the Teaching 
of the Twelve Apostles, when it is discovered, is seen 
to contain, in the prayers to be said in connection 
with the Eucharist, echoes from the closing chapters 
of John. 

In all antiquity there is no lisp of contradiction, 
no instance of a doubt of the genuineness of the 
Fourth Gospel, except in the case of the so-called 
Alogi. The exception is unimportant. They are 
indirect witnesses against themselves, since they attri- 
buted the Gospel to Cerinthus, a contemporary of the 
Apostle, and thus bear witness to the early date of the 
work, and by implication to its established, undisputed 
authority. Irenaeus tells us what the opinions of 
Cerinthus were. He held that Jesus was not born 
of a virgin, and that after his baptism Christ de- 
scended upon him, entering into a temporary union 
with him. That is to say, Cerinthus held the Gnostic 
opinion that Jesus is not the Christ (Adv. Hasr., I. 
xxvi. 1). Irenasus assures us that the Apostle John 
aimed to overthrow the error of Cerinthus (Adv. 
Haer., III. xi. 1). Opening the Gospel, we find the 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 189 

motive of the author thus avowed : " that ye may be- 
lieve that Jesus is the Christ." We find that in the 
Epistle of John this truth is declared to be the crite- 
rion of a genuine Christianity. Thus the testimony 
of Irenseus as to the intent of the Apostle corresponds 
with the purpose of the writer of the Gospel and the 
Epistle. That Cerinthus wrote the Gospel, was an 
absurd hypothesis. It is evident from the paragraph 
in Irenaeus respecting the Alogi that they were moved 
to their scepticism, not by the existence of any tradi- 
tion counter to the established belief, nor at the out- 
set by critical difficulties, but by a doctrinal prejudice. 
Irenaeus gives them bat a brief notice, — which indi- 
cates clearly that they had little importance in his 
eyes, and had not the slightest influence on his con- 
victions respecting the subject. There is no proof 
that they were more than a few in number. They 
had no name, and did not attain to the dignity of a 
sect. Harnack has shown that if we may trust 
Epiphanius on this point, they coupled a rejection of 
the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, with their aver- 
sion to the doctrine of the Paraclete. But I cannot 
think that any importance is to be attached to their 
opinion respecting the Fourth Gospel. Hippolytus 
probably opposed them in his lost work on the Gospel 
of John and the Apocalypse. But Theodotus, what- 
ever connection he may have had with the Alogi, is 
proved not to have rejected John's Gospel. Those 
who shared in the temporary aversion to the Apoca- 
lypse, and doubted or denied its Apostolic author- 



190 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

ship, Caius (if he was one of them), Dionysius, and 
all the rest, accepted the Fourth Gospel as the work 
of John. The dissent of the handful of Alogi at 
Thyatira — some of whom, it is not unlikely, made 
their way to Rome — when the motives of that dis- 
sent and the other circumstances are taken into ac- 
count, seems only to emphasize the unanimity with 
which the churches and theologians, East and West, 
recognized the Apostolic authorship of the Fourth 
Gospel. 

That this Gospel should have been acknowledged by 
the orthodox and by the Gnostics alike, from the 
beginning to the end of the great controversy that 
agitated the Church in the second century, is a mar- 
vel indeed, provided it be assumed that it had no 
Apostolic paternity, but was a work of unknown 
authorship. The marvel is magnified when it is re- 
membered how unique this Gospel is in its structure 
and contents, and how strikingly it deviates from the 
previous established conception of the Lord's history 
as it stood on the long familiar pages of the Synop- 
tical narratives. Who would have the capacity to 
compose such a Gospel ? What Christian disciple 
would desire to invent such a narrative ? Who would 
dare to do it among the churches where John's name 
and teaching were well remembered ? If they were 
not well remembered, the appearance of such a work, 
late and on a sudden, would be the more startling, 
and the difficulty of securing for it a hospitable recep- 
tion would, if possible, be enhanced. On the whole, 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 191 

the candid student must acknowledge that as far as 
external proofs of genuineness are concerned, the 
Fourth Gospel is fully up to the level of the other 
three. A like attestation in behalf of any of the 
principal works in classical literature, if it could be 
obtained, would be considered absolutely decisive. 

In connection with the internal evidence respecting 
the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, the main point, 
of course, is the credibility of its contents. Since the 
extreme ground taken by Baur was abandoned, vari- 
ous positions have been assumed by such as do not 
hold that John wrote the work. Some, as Weisse 
and Schenkel, have accepted the discourses as genu- 
ine, but have considered the narrative matter as more 
or less unhistorical. Others, like Renan, have taken 
the reverse position, holding to the history as largely 
veracious, but rejecting the discourses. It has be- 
come more and more clear to candid critics, be their 
conclusion on the principal question what it may, that 
the author of the Gospel was not unfamiliar with the 
events in the life of Jesus, and that he supplies his- 
torical facts which are not found in the Synoptics. 
It is often admitted that a Juclcean ministry, such 
as they do not record, is not in itself improbable. 
This must be supposed if any satisfactory explana- 
tion is to be given of the language of Christ in his 
lament over Jerusalem, which is set down in the 
Synoptics, " How often would I have gathered thee," 
etc. Schiirer holds that as to the elate of the Last 
Supper, we are not authorized by the evidence to 



192 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

decide against the Fourth Evangelist. The opinion 
based on one interpretation of Mark's Gospel, that 
Jesus did not for a long time disclose himself to his 
Disciples as the Messiah, has been considered on a 
previous page. Here it may be observed that the 
account in John of the attraction of disciples of the 
Baptist to Jesus, and of this beginning of his work, 
accords with the probabilities in the case. The par- 
ticularity of the narrative in John, and its graphic 
character, are a powerful argument in its favor (John 
i. 35-43). We are told how John the Baptist directed 
the attention of two of his disciples to Jesus, how 
Jesus turned and saw them following him, what was 
said between them, even what was the hour of the 
day. This is either a true record of the Apostle 
John's first acquaintance with Jesus, or somebody's 
invention. Such a preliminary acquaintance of Jesus 
with the Disciples explains the seeming abruptness of 
his call to them, in Galilee, to forsake their employ- 
ments and to follow him, and their immediate com- 
pliance with his request. 

The diversity in the type of teaching in the Fourth 
Gospel from that in the Synoptics coexists with 
striking points of sympathy and coincidence. The 
passage (in Matt. xi. 27 seq.~) : " No one knoweth 
the Son but the Father," etc., is thoroughly in the 
spirit of the discourses in John. If it be but a sin- 
gle passage, yet its peculiarity is so distinct as to 
inspire the feeling that there must have been other 
teaching in the same vein. There are passages in the 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 193 

discourses in John which occur incidentally, and at- 
test the truthfulness of the record. The words at 
the end of the fourteenth chapter, " Arise, let us go 
hence," yield no intelligible meaning unless they are 
supposed to have been actually spoken by Jesus as 
he was about to depart from the table. Either he 
remained for a time, carried away by his interest in 
his theme, or what follows was uttered on the way 
towards the Garden. 

The linguistic character of the Fourth Gospel is 
altogether peculiar. The Greek is not like that 
of other Greek authors. This language was not 
the writer's vernacular; it was an acquired tongue. 
The writer was a Hebrew by birth, and in the judg- 
ment of so high an authority on this subject as 
Ewald, was a Palestinian Hebrew. After saying 
that the author of the Gospel, in the plan of his 
book and in the way of carrying it out, most evi- 
dently shows himself to be like a veritable old Hebrew 
writer of the higher type, Ewald adds : — 

"It is quite worthy of notice that the Greek language 
of the author carries in it the clearest and strongest marks 
of a genuine Hebrew who was born in the Holy Land, 
and in that society grew up without speaking Greek, and 
who even in the midst of the Greek garb which he learned 
to wrap about him, still keeps the whole spirit and breath 
of his mother- tongue, and by it has no scruples in letting 
himself be guided. The Greek language of our Gospel, 
to be sure, has not so strong a Hebrew color as that of 
the older Gospels ; it has taken up many genuine Greek 
traits. But in its real spirit and tone, no style could be 

13 



194 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

more genuinely Hebrew than our author's. Since he, 
nevertheless, even in his linguistic peculiarity, has not 
cast aside his characteristically creative power and move- 
ment, there has originated with him a Greek which is 
peculiar, and has nothing like it elsewhere even among 
writings which are tinged with the Hebrew. Only the 
time, the biographical facts, and all the characteristics 
of the Apostle John can explain the originality of this 
Greek style." * 

Ewald goes on to vindicate these statements by 
special illustrative arguments. 2 

It is thought by some that the author of this 
Gospel was imbued with the philosophy of Philo. 
Yet others, of whom Weiss is one, think it quite 
possible to account for the phenomena on which this 
opinion is based, without even assuming on the au- 
thor's part any acquaintance with Alexandrian opin- 
ions. Certain it is that the fundamental doctrine of 
the Gospel, the doctrine of the incarnation of the 
Logos, is absolutely at variance with the tenets of 
the Alexandrian school. It must be remembered 
that a principal source of the conceptions and terms 
which characterize the theology of Philo was the 
later books of the Old Testament and the still later 

1 Die Johanneischen Schriften, i. 44, 

2 That the Greek of the Fourth Gospel is not that of an Hellen- 
istic Jew, and how characteristic peculiarities of the Hebrew per- 
vade the book, are illustrated by the late Bishop Lightfoot in his 
Lecture on the Internal Evidence for the Johannine Authorship, 
which is published in "The Expositor" for January, February, 
and March, 1890. 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 195 

writings of the Apocrypha. If speculations about 
the Logos, or Word, were " in the air" at the time 
when John taught at Ephesus, whether the impulse 
to such discussions proceeded from the school of 
Philo or not, it was quite natural that the Apostle 
should take up the term, both to correct incidentally 
false ideas associated with it, and to make it the 
vehicle for expressing the true doctrine of Christ 
as the incarnate Revealer of God, which he had 
learned from his intercourse with Jesus himself. 
One of the leading arguments — one of those ad- 
duced by Schurer — adverse to the Johannine au- 
thorship is the general way in which the author 
refers to the Jewish religion, and his liberal tone 
and teaching as regards the privileges and position 
of the Gentiles in the Church. Now that the theory 
of the Tubingen school that there was an antago- 
nism of the " pillar Apostles " to Paul and to his 
liberal course in laying no yoke of ordinances on 
the Gentile converts, has broken down and been 
pretty generally given up, the objection to which we 
here advert has lost much of its force. The Apostle 
Paul, as early as when he wrote his Epistle to the 
Galatians, could speak of "the Jews' religion" (i. 13, 
14). Near the close of the century, decades of years 
after the temple had been laid in ruins, and after 
John had lived so long in the midst of Gentile 
churches, what difficulty is there in supposing him 
to have attained to a clear consciousness of the 
universal intent and spirit of the Gospel, and to 



196 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

a full appreciation of the purport of this part of 
the Master's teaching ? 

It is not to be denied that the Fourth Gospel 
is tinged throughout with the subjective peculiarity 
of the author. It is all — narrative and discourses 
— bathed in his spirit. The style is the same from 
beginning to end. The influence of the subjective 
element may be overstated. This, as I cannot but 
think, has been done by Weiss in his instructive 
and interesting " Life of Jesus." But that a sub- 
jective element is there, and has its influence, an 
attentive study of the Gospel leaves no room to 
doubt. 

Why not, then, it may be asked, solve the problem 
and get rid of all perplexities at one stroke, by 
assuming, as many at present are inclined to assume, 
that the Gospel was composed by a disciple, or by 
disciples, of the Apostle John, on the basis of recol- 
lections of his teachings ? There are several strong 
objections in the way of this theory. In the first 
place, the writer claims to be an eye-witness. This 
is asserted at the beginning (i. 14) ; it is re-affirmed 
at the outset of the First Epistle, which is undeniably 
from the same pen. Secondly, we have the attesta- 
tion of the Disciples at the end of the book ; and 
this attestation declares that the witness to what 
is recorded in it " wrote these things " (John xxi. 
24). Thirdly, the omission of the author of the 
Gospel to give his name, and the avoiding of any 
mention of the name of the Apostle John — the 



AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE GOSPELS. 197 

pains taken to avoid it — are capable of no satisfactory 
explanation except one ; namely, that John himself, 
in a spirit of modesty, chooses thus to veil himself. 
If his Disciples were the writers, why all this deli- 
cacy and resort to circumlocution ? Fourthly, the 
Gospel is an outpouring of personal experience. The 
book is a unit. It was composed, as Neander said, 
" at one cast." The conception of it as a conglomer- 
ate made of pieces picked up from the Synoptics or 
other sources, hardly deserves consideration. It is 
born, and not made, and is warm with the pulses 
of life. The point is that the book is a profession 
of faith, and, more than this, a fervent, loving rela- 
tion of the way in which faith arose and established 
itself in the author's heart, through personal inter- 
course and contact with Jesus. These considerations 
appear to present insuperable difficulties in the way 
of the theory that not John himself, but his followers 
or associates, wrote the Gospel. 



II. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CHARACTER OF THE 
GOSPEL HISTORIES. 

What the true character of the Gospels is, and how 
to study them, may be illustrated by looking atten- 
tively at certain passages in them and comparing these 
passages with one another. It is assumed that the 
reader approaches the inquiry without any disposition 
to find discrepancies, and, on the other hand, with 
no preconceived theory which forbids them to bo ad- 
mitted, in case they appear to exist. That is to 
say, we take up the narratives just as we should the 
writings of other historians or biographers whose 
intention to relate facts we have no occasion to 
distrust. 

Let the first example be the accounts given of the 
baptism of Jesus. This is an event which John does 
not directly record. He quotes, however, a reference 
to it which was made by John the Baptist. That the 
Baptist refers to that event, there is no reason to 
doubt, notwithstanding that Baur and some others 
have imagined that the author of the Fourth Gospel 
did not design his hearers to infer that Jesus was 
baptized by the Forerunner : — 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 199 



Matt. iii. 13-17. 

(13) Then cometh 
Jesus from Galilee 
to the Jordan unto 
John, to he baptized 
of him. (14) But 
John would have 
hindered him, say- 
ing, I have need to be 
baptized of thee, and 
comest thou to me ? 
(15) But Jesus an- 
swering said unto 
him, Suffer it now: 
for thus it becometh 
us to fulfil all righ- 
teousness. (16) Then 
he suffer eth him. 
And Jesus, when he 
was baptized, went 
up straightway from 
the water: and lo, 
the heavens were 
opened unto him, 
and he saw the 
Spirit of God de- 
scending as a dove, 
and coming upon 
him; (17) and lo, a 
voice out of the 
heavens, saying, 
This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am 
well pleased. 



Mark i. 9-11. 

(9) And it came to 
pass in those days, 
that Jesus came 
from Nazareth of 
Galilee, and was 
baptized of John in 
the Jordan. (10) And 
straightway coming 
up out of the water, 
he saw the heavens 
rent asunder, and 
the Spirit as a dove 
descending upon 
him: (11) and a voice 
came out of the 
heavens, Thou art 
my beloved Son, in 
thee I am well 
pleased. 



Luke iii. 21-23. 

(21) Now it came 
to pass, when all the 
people were bap- 
tized, that, Jesus 
also having been 
baptized, and pray- 
ing, the heaven was 
opened, (22) and the 
Holy Ghost descend- 
ed in a bodily form, 
as a dove, upon him, 
and a voice came out 
of heaven, Thou art 
my beloved Son; in 
thee I am well 
pleased. 



John i. 19-34. 

(31) And I knew 
him not; but that 
he should be made 
manifest to Israel, 
for this cause came 
I baptizing with 
water. (32) And 
John bare witness, 
saying, I have be- 
held the spirit de- 
scending as a d >ve 
out of heaven; and 
it abode upon him. 

(33) and I knew him 
not : but he that sent 
me to baptize with 
water, he said unto 
me, Upon whomso- 
ever thou shalt see 
the Spirit descend- 
ing, and abiding 
upon him, the same 
is he that baptizeth 
with the Holy Spirit. 

(34) And I have seen, 
and have borne wit- 
ness that this is the 
Son of God. 



The circumstance that John at first shrunk from 
baptizing Jesus, is recorded by Matthew alone. Such 
critics as Strauss and Keim find a contradiction here 
with the statement in the Fourth Gospel, " I knew 
him not," etc. But this does not exclude a personal 
acquaintance with Jesus, and perhaps a surmise that 
he was the Promised One. " I knew him not," in 
John's narrative, means ' recognized him not as the 
Messiah.' But the words spoken, as given in Mark 
and Luke, are addressed directly to Jesus : " Thou 
art," etc. In Matthew, he is in the third person: 



200 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION'. 

u This is my beloved Son," etc. Here is a disagree- 
ment. No doubt each evangelist meant to give the 
words in the exact form. The accounts on which 
they depended varied. In the Fourth Gospel, the 
manifestation is for John's instruction. The same 
interpretation is suggested by the form of words in 
Matthew. In Mark it is said that "he" — that is, 
Jesus — " saw the heavens rent asunder," etc. But 
neither Mark's account nor Luke's is in the least in- 
consistent with the supposition that John, as well as 
Jesus, observed the miraculous phenomena. Keim, 
usually disposed to rule out the miraculous facts in 
the Gospels, finds in the solemn and momentous 
transaction between the Prophet and Jesus on the 
bank of the Jordan, something truly supernatural. 

The discrepancy in the record of the words spoken 
from heaven at the baptism of Jesus has many par- 
allels in the Gospel histories. A familiar instance is 
that of the inscription on the cross : — 

Matt, xxvii. 37. Mark xv. 26. Luke xxiii. 38. John xix. 19. 

And they set up And the super- And there was (19) And Pilate 

over his head his scription of his ac- also a superscription wrote a title also, 

accusation written, cusation was writ- over him, this is and put it on the 

this is jesus the ten over, the king the king of the cross. And there 

KING OF THE JEWS. OF THE JEWS. JEWS. Was Written, JESUS 

OF NAZARETH, THE 
KING OF THE JEWS. 

In the Authorized Version, Luke is made to say that 
the superscription was " in letters of Greek and Latin 
and Hebrew." These words, which were probably in- 
serted in the text of Luke from John's Gospel, are 
left out in the Revised Version. The variations in 
the form of the inscription are seen at a glance. 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 201 

They point to different sources of information. One 
harmonistic suggestion is that the inscription was not 
the same in the three languages. This of course is 
possible, but not probable. 

Another familiar example of discrepancies, trifling 
in their nature, is in the accounts of the sending out 
of the Twelve : — 

Matt x. 10. Mark vi. 8. Luke ix. 3, 4. 

Get you no gold, nor (8) And he charged them (3) And he said unto them, 
silver, nor brass in your that they should take noth- Take nothing for your jour- 
purses ; (10) no wallet lor ing for their journey, save ney, neither staff, nor wal- 
your journey, neither two a staff only ; no bread, no let, nor bread, nor money ; 
coats, nor shoes, nor staff: wallet, no money in their (4) neither have two coats, 
for the labourer is worthy purse ; but to go shod with 
of his food. sandals : and, said he, put 
not on two coats. 

Mark describes the Disciples as going forth with 
nothing in their hands but a pilgrim's staff. In Mat- 
thew and Luke, they are to take not even a staff. 
The idea in all is that they are to go out unprovided, 
and to depend wholly on charity. 

Our next illustration is drawn from the accounts of 
the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke. It 
is often doubted whether in Luke (vi. 20-49) we 
have not another discourse distinct from that given in 
Matthew. But the identity of the two discourses is 
proved by the similarity of the contents. Both end 
with the parable of the house built on a rock. The 
identity is proved also by the chronological land- 
mark, the healing of the Centurion's servant, which 
immediately follows in both Evangelists. That we 
have two accounts of one and the same discourse is 
the accepted view of the great majority of critics. It 



202 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

is true that Matthew associates with the Sermon on 
the Mount passages from teaching of Jesus which be- 
longs chronologically in other connections. Much of 
it is placed elsewhere in Luke ; in some instances in 
conjunction with circumstances evidently more ap- 
propriate. This is true, for example, of the Lord's 
Prayer. The particular theme of Jesus in Matthew 
(vi. 5 seq.) is not prayer in general, but hypocrisy 
in prayer. But in Luke we are told that on a cer- 
tain occasion he was praying, and one of his Dis- 
ciples made the request : " Teach us to pray, even as 
John taught his disciples." Thereupon Jesus gave 
them the Lord's Prayer. The request would be 
strange if this prayer had been given before. In case 
it had been given before, Jesus in his answer would 
most likely have reminded them of it. 

In comparing the two reports of the discourse of 
Jesus, the first inquiry relates to the place and the 
audience. Luke says that it came to pass u in these 
days " — he has apparently no means of fixing the 
time more definitely — " that Jesus went out into 
the mountain to pray." He continued in prayer 
through the night. In the morning he called " his 
disciples," — those who accepted his teaching. The 
fact is thus stated by Mark (iii. 13) : "He goeth 
into the mountain and calleth unto him whom he 
himself would." Then follows, according to Luke, 
(and Mark also) the choice of the Twelve. Then 
Jesus descended, Luke proceeds to say, and stood on 
" a level place." By " the mountain " in Mark we 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 203 

may understand the mountainous country over the 
Lake of G-ennesaret, since the Evangelist had just 
spoken of the seaside, and explained that on account 
of the throng Jesus had been obliged to address them 
from a boat. But as Luke has made no mention of 
the seaside, and as he tells us that Jesus " came 
down" from the mountain, he may perhaps, have 
meant by this term a high point, or summit. There 
is no reason, therefore, why we may not suppose the 
" level place " to have been a plateau to which Jesus 
descended from a higher elevation. With him, on the 
broad level, were not only the Twelve, but also, 
Luke adds, a " multitude of his disciples," and a 
" great number of people " besides. Jesus, directing 
his attention to his Disciples, began his address. 
Turning now from Luke to Matthew, we find no men- 
tion of the choice, or setting apart, of the Twelve ; 
but later in the Gospel, such an act of Jesus is as- 
sumed to have taken place. Prior to the record of 
the Sermon on the Mount we have in Matthew only 
an account of the selection of four as followers : Peter 
and Andrew, James and John (Matt. iv. 18-23). As 
an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 
acquaints us with the fact that, drawn by his teach- 
ing and his miracles, there followed him great multi- 
tudes (iv. 25). " Seeing the multitudes, he went 
up into the mountain. And when he had sat down, 
his disciples came unto him." We should infer at 
the first glance that it was to escape the throng and 
to be with " the disciples " apart, that he chose to 



204 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

retire to the mountain. But it is obvious from the 
discourse which follows that his audience was com- 
posed not only of Disciples in the broader sense, 
but of many others besides. When he finished, " the 
multitudes were astonished at his teaching." With 
Tholuck we may imagine that near to him were gath- 
ered his believing adherents, while the outer circle 
was made up of a more miscellaneous throng. 

When we look at the two reports of this discourse, 
or at the portion of it which Luke presents when com- 
pared with the corresponding portion in Matthew, 
some striking diversities at once appear. 

Matt. v. 2-6. Luke vi. 20-22, 25, 26. 

(2) And he opened his mouth (20) And he lifted up his eyes 
and taught them, saying, on his disciples, and said, Blessed 

(3) Blessed are the poor in are ye poor: for yours is the king- 
spirit : for theirs is the kingdom dom of God. (21) Blessed are ye 
of heaven. that hunger now: for ye shall be 

(4) Blessed are they that mourn: filled. Blessed are ye that weep 
for they shall be comforted. now : for ye shall laugh. 

(5) Blessed are the meek : for 

they shall inherit the earth. But woe unto you that are rich! 

(6) Blessed are they that hun- for ye have received your consola- 
ger and thirst after righteousness: tion. (25) Woe unto you , ye that 
for they shall be filled. are full now ! for ye shall hunger. 

Woe unto you, ye that laugh now ! 
for ye shall mourn and weep. 

In Matthew the class specified who are to be blessed 
are those who have a sense of spiritual need, and who 
are afflicted with hunger of soul, with a longing to be 
righteous. In Luke, it is those who are poor and 
lack food, in the literal sense of the words. The 
meaning in Luke is made clear by the added woes, 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 205 

which are wanting in Matthew : " Woe unto you that 
are rich," etc. We may defer for the moment the 
question what sense consonant with the general 
teaching of Christ may be attached to the expressions 
in Luke. We have first to inquire what Jesus really 
said. It is evident that we have to decide between 
the report in Matthew and that in Luke. Jesus could 
not have made those diverse utterances in the same 
breath. Some expositors, of whom Godet is one, still 
think that Luke is here the more exact. They ima- 
gine Jesus to have looked on the gathering before 
him, made up of the poor, whose outward condition 
had caused them to feel a poverty of spirit and a 
spiritual need. He pronounced them blessed even in 
their destitution and on account of it. This yields 
a not unacceptable meaning to the words in Luke, 
and a meaning consistent with the spirit of Christ's 
teaching elsewhere. Yet there are decisive grounds 
for the conclusion that the form of the Beatitudes as 
we find it in Matthew is the correct one. This is 
the conclusion of the majority of the more judicious 
critics, including Meyer and Weiss. The opposite 
view is maintained by Pfleiderer and Holtzmann, but 
has been confuted by no one more satisfactorily 
than by Weizsacker. The discourse in Matthew has 
a distinct subject. It presents the new law — the 
Christian ideal of righteousness — in contrast with 
more external and lower standards such as had 
existed in the past and such as made up the moral 
code of Pharisaism. It thus begins with the tempers 



206 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVEL ATIOX. 

of heart which qualify one for the blessings of the 
new kingdom. The discourse in Luke bears marks 
of having been drawn from a less complete, fragmen- 
tary report or record of it. At the sixth verse it is 
said : " But I say unto you which hear, Love your 
enemies," etc. Here is the adversative " but," without 
what precedes it in Matthew : " Ye have heard that 
it was said," etc. Verses 39 and 40, relating to blind 
guides and to the disciple not being above his Master, 
are brought in, breaking the connection of thought. 
The first of these sayings is found in Matthew xv. 14, 
and the second in Matthew x. 24, — each in an ap- 
propriate setting. The transition (Luke vi. 46, 47) 
to the parable of the house built on the rock, will be 
felt to be quite abrupt when it is compared with the 
way in which Matthew's report leads up to this 
parable. 

The Church in all ages has not erred in taking the 
Sermon on the Mount as it stands in Matthew — 
apart from the additional teachings grouped with it 
— as the Magna Charta of the Messiah's community. 
It is the law given, to quote Ewald's language, from 
" the new Sinai." 

How shall we account for the variations in Luke ? 
That Luke had in his hands the Logia of the Apostle 
Matthew, and himself changed the form of the Beati- 
tudes, is a gratuitous and unsupported assumption. 
It is claimed that Luke favored an Ebionite opinion 
that looked on the possession of property as a sin. 
But his writings contain no proof of this imputation. 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 207 

If Zaccheus gave one half of his wealth to the poor, 
one half he was allowed without censure to retain. It 
was the difference in character between Dives and 
Lazarus, and not the unlikeness in their earthly con- 
dition, that determined the lot of each at the end 
of life. There is no Ebionitism in the Beatitudes 
as they are given in Luke, since, as Weiss remarks, 
" the poor are the believing disciples of Jesus, and as 
such are blessed." The real purport of them is in 
essential consonance with various recorded, and not 
unlikely with many unrecorded, utterances of Jesus. 
No doubt Luke followed an authority less full and 
correct than the Logia of Matthew. Probably it was 
the same Logia in an abridged and altered form, or, 
if not the Logia, some other written record in which 
teachings of Christ were brought together. In a 
number of passages in Luke it is evident that his 
source of information respecting the words of Christ 
is not on a level with that at the basis of Matthew. 
The following is the Lord's Prayer as it is found in 
the two authors respectively : — 

Matt. vi. 9-13. Luke xi. 2-4. 

(9) After this manner therefore (2) And he said unto them, 
pray ye : Our Father which art in When ye pray, say, Father, Hal- 
heaven, Hallowed be thy name, lowed be thy name. Thy king- 
(10) Thy kingdom come. Thy dom come. (3) Give us day by 
will be done, as in heaven, so on day our daily bread. (4) And for- 
earth. (11) Give us this day our give us our sins; for we ourselves 
daily bread. (12) And forgive us also forgive every one that is in- 
our debts, as we also have forgiven debted to us. And bring us not 
our debtors. (13) And bring us into temptation, 
not into temptation, but deliver us 
from the evil one. 



208 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

The translation from Luke above is from the cor- 
rected Greek text. In the text at the basis of the 
Authorized Version are words and clauses which had 
been introduced into it from Matthew. It is not 
to be supposed that Luke erased anything from the 
Lord's Prayer as it stood in the source from which he 
derived it. The reasons for giving the preference to 
the form in Matthew as the most authentic are of the 
same tenor as those already assigned in reference 
to the Beatitudes. Hence we conclude that Luke in 
this instance likewise was guided by an authority 
distinct and less exact. 

In conjunction with the record of the Sermon 
on the Mount both Matthew and Luke narrate the 
miracle wrought in answer to the request of the 
Centurion. 



Matt. viii. 5-13. 

(5) And when he was entered 
into Capernaum, there came unto 
him a centurion, beseeching him, 
and saying, (6) Lord, my servant 
lieth in the house sick of the palsy, 
grievously tormented. (7) And 
he saith unto him, I will come 
and heal him. (8) And the cen- 
turion answered and said, Lord, I 
am not worthy that thou shouldest 
come under ray roof: but only say 
the word, and my servant shall be 
healed. (9) For I also am a man 
under authority, having under my- 
self soldiers: and I say to this one, 
Go, and he goeth ; and to another, 



Luke vii. 2-10. 

(2) And a certain centurion's 
servant, who was dear unto him, 
was sick, and at the point of death. 

(3) And when he heard concerning 
Jesus, he sent unto him elders 
of the Jews, asking him that he 
would come and save his servant. 

(4) And they, when they came 
to Jesus, besought him earnestty, 
saying, He is worthy that thou 
shouldest do this for him : (5) for 
he loveth our nation, and himself 
built us our synagogue. (6) And 
Jesus went with them. And when 
he was now not far from the house, 
the centurion sent friends to him, 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 209 



Come, and he cometh ; and to my 
servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 
(10) And when Jesus heard it, he 
marvelled, and said to them that 
followed, Verily I say unto you, I 
have not found so great faith, no, 
not in Israel. (11) And I say 
unto you, that many shall come 
from the east and the west, and 
shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom 
of heaven: (12) but the sons of the 
kingdom shall be cast forth into 
the outer darkness : there shall be 
the weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
(13) And Jesus said unto the cen- 
turion, Go thy way; as thou hast 
believed, so be it done unto thee. 
And the servant was healed in 
that hour. 



saying unto him, Lord, trouble 
not thyself: for I am not worthy 
that thou shouldest come under 
my roof: (7) wherefore neither 
thought I myself worthy to corne 
unto thee : but say the word, 
and my servant shall be healed. 

(8) For I also am a man set under 
authority, having under myself 
soldiers: and I say to this one, 
Go, and he goeth; and to another, 
Come, and he cometh; and to my 
servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 

(9) And when Jesus heard these 
things, he marvelled at him, and 
turned and said unto the multi- 
tude that followed him, I say unto 
you, I have not found so great 
faith, no, not in Israel. (10) And 
they that were sent, returning 
to the house, found the servant 
whole. 



In Matthew, it is the Centurion in person, and 
he alone, who applies to Jesus. In Luke, it is first 
the Jewish elders who come in the Centurion's behalf, 
and then, later, his friends. It was they who, return- 
ing to the house, found the servant whole. Luke's 
account is more fresh, and has an air of originality 
as if it were derived from an immediate source. In 
the tradition at the basis of Matthew's account the 
occurrence had been thrown into a briefer form, and 
altered in the process of shortening it. By some 
scholars, ancient and modern, the healing of the 
nobleman's son (John iv. 46-53) has been thought 
to be identical with the miracle wrought for the 
Centurion. It is thus spoken of by Irenasus. Such 

14 



210 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

is now the opinion of Neander, Weiss, and others. 
But the diversity in the circumstances renders this 
conclusion questionable. The characteristic feature 
of the Centurion's saying, that Jesus had no need 
to come to the house, does not appear in John's 
narration, which reads as follows : — 

There was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. 
(47) When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, 
he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and 
heal his son; for he was at the point of death. (48) Jesus therefore 
said unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise 
believe. (49) The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my 
child die. (50) Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. 
The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him, and he went 
his way. (51) And as he was now going down, his servants met him, 
saying, that his son lived. (52) So he inquired of them the hour 
when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, Yesterday 
at the seventh hour the fever left him. (53) So the father knew that 
it was at that hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth : 
and himself believed, and his whole house. 

All critical students of the New Testament are 
aware of an apparent or real discrepancy betAveen 
the Synoptical Gospels and the Gospel of John 
respecting the date of the Last Supper. The Synop- 
tical Gospels, with one accord, place it at the usual 
time of the Passover meal, — the evening of the 
14th Nisan, or, according to the Jewish reckon- 
ing, the beginning of the 15th Nisan. Mark says : 
" On the first day of unleavened bread, when they 
sacrificed the passover, his disciples say unto him, 
Where wilt thou that we go and make ready that 
thou mayest eat the passover ? " In this designa- 
tion of time the three Gospels agree. But John 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 211 

(xiii. 1) begins his account of the last meal taken 
by Christ with his Disciples, with the words : u Now 
before the feast of the passover," — words which 
must be connected with the principal statement 
that follows, " he loved them to the end." This 
statement, many critics allege, is to guard against 
the idea that it was the Passover meal, and to 
indicate that it was a repast on the previous day. 
The phrases, " during supper " (not the Supper), 
and " riseth from supper," soon occur (verses 2, 4). 
After a time, in the course of the meal, Judas 
retired from the room. Some thought that he had 
been directed to make provision " for the feast," — 
where the article occurs (verse 29). In John xix. 
14, the day of the crucifixion is called " the prep- 
aration of the passover," — as if it were the morning 
before. Saturday is styled (xix. 31) "a high day," 
which would be natural if it were at once the Sabbath 
and the Passover. Finally, on Friday morning the 
Jews would not enter the palace of Pilate, " that 
they might not be defiled, but might eat the pass- 
over." Other explanations, more or less plausible, 
are suggested for several of the preceding passages. 
This reference to a fear of defilement, with the reason 
assigned, it is certainly very difficult, if it be possible, 
to account for, in case the Passover supper had al- 
ready been eaten. It is the conclusion, therefore, 
of a large number of eminent critics of every school 
of theology that, according to John, the repast of 
Jesus with his Disciples was on the evening before 



212 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the Passover meal ; that is, that the Thursday even- 
ing of that week was the 13th, or, according to 
the Jewish reckoning, the 14th of Nisan. Among 
these critics are Neander, Bleek, Meyer, Weiss, Elli- 
cott, Westcott. Canon Westcott, in his Commentary 
on John, says of the acts and discourses which 
begin with John xiii. : " All these took place ' before 
the feast,' that is, on the evening (the commence- 
ment) of Nisan 13th ; and in these last scenes 
before the Passover, at which the Jewish type found 
its perfect fulfilment, the love of the Lord was 
revealed in its highest form." Westcott remarks 
on the 29th verse : " These words show that the 
meal cannot have been the Passover. Moreover, 
if it had been, Judas would not have left while 
the meal was as yet unfinished." Critics who adopt 
this opinion find even in the first three Gospels 
incidental corroboration of it, in the passages which 
indicate that the day of crucifixion was a day when 
labor and intercourse were going on as usual (Matt, 
xxvii. 59 seq. ; Mark xv. 21, 42, 46 ; Luke xxiii. 
26, 54, 56~). Simon, who bore the cross, was coming 
in from " the country," — apparently from labor in 
the field. Occupations are referred to which it is 
hardly probable would be allowed on a day so solemn 
as the first day of the Passover. 

On the supposition that John is correctly inter- 
preted by the scholars to whom reference has just 
been made, — and it must be admitted that their 
view is coming to prevail, — there is a discrepancy 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 213 

between John and the Synoptists. We have then 
to conclude that John purposely rectifies a mistake 
which had made its way into the Galilean tradition. 
Such a mistake is less surprising if it be supposed 
that this portion of the narrative in the Greek Mat- 
thew, as well as in Luke, was drawn from Mark, 
or that all three authors here represent one source. 
It was understood by all that the crucifixion took 
place in conjunction with the Passover, when the 
multitudes were gathered for the festival. The Last 
Supper took on to some extent, by anticipation, the 
character of the Paschal Supper, as appears in the 
accounts of the institution of the Eucharist. 

An interesting illustration of the character of the 
Gospel histories is presented in the accounts given 
of the interviews of Jesus with his Disciples after 
his resurrection. It is impossible to dovetail strictly 
these narratives with one another ; but their peculiari- 
ties are just those which add credibility to the main 
facts. We turn first to the oldest of the Gospel 
narratives. The last twelve verses in Mark are 
not a part of the original text. This passage con- 
tains extracts from Luke and from John, and was 
composed, it appears probable, to fill out the seem- 
ingly incomplete narrative of Mark. At the outset 
the reader should be reminded that all the Gospels 
record the visit to the sepulchre made by women 
near the dawn of the third dav. 



214 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

Matt, xxviii. 1. Mark xvi. 1-2. Luke xxiv. 1, 10. John xx. I. 

Now late on the (1) And when the (1) And on the Now on the first 
sabbath day, as it sabbath was past, sabbath they rested day of the week 
began to dawn to- Mary Magdalene, according to the cometh Mary Mag- 
ward the first day of and Mary the mother commandment. But dalene early, while 
theweek.cameMary of James, and Sa- on the first day of it was yet dark, unto 
Magdalene and the lome, bought spices, the week, at early the tomb, and seeth 
other Mary to see that they might dawn, they came the stone taken 
the sepulchre. come and anoint unto the tomb, away from the tomb, 

him. (2) And very bringing the spices 
early on the first day which they had pre- 
of the week, they pared, 
come to the tomb 

when the sun was (10) Now they 
risen. were Mary Magda- 

lene, and Joanna, 
and M ary the mother 
of James: and the 
other women with 
them told these 
things unto the 
apostles. 

In Mark (xiv. 27, 28) we find the words of Jesus : 
" All ye shall be offended : for it is written, I will 
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered 
abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go be- 
fore you into Galilee." And the same Evangelist 
states that the angel in the sepulchre said to the 
women : " Go, tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth 
before you into Galilee : there shall ye see him, as 
he said unto you." Here (with only the addition of 
a single verse relating to the women, which will soon 
be noticed) Mark breaks off his account. Possibly 
he intended to pursue it in a distinct writing ; but 
on this point we have no information. The conclud- 
ing statement of Mark is that the women, frightened, 
fled from the tomb, and that " they said nothing to 
any one ; for they were afraid." Something occurred ; 
but here the curtain drops on the narrative. Luke 
relates that the women " told these things to the 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 215 

eleven and to all the rest." Matthew says (xxviii. 8) 
that the women departed quickly from the tomb with 
fear and great joy, and ran to bring his Disciples 
word. They met Jesus, who gave them this mes- 
sage : " Go tell my brethren that they depart into 
Galilee, and there shall they see me ; " and then 
(verse 16) it is said that the eleven Disciples went 
into Galilee " unto the mountain where Jesus had 
appointed them." There they met him. With re- 
gard to all occurrences of a very startling nature, 
testimony is almost sure to vary. Often there are 
circumstances which, if known, might serve to re- 
move apparent discrepancies. But it is also true 
that real inconsistencies are apt to be found among 
the different witnesses, and especially in the reports 
that spread abroad from them. While, therefore, the 
suggestions of harmonists are in some cases of value, 
it is better frankly to recognize that such inconsis- 
tencies exist than to resort to artificial methods of 
conciliation. Just now the principal thing to be re- 
marked is that from Mark and Matthew alone we 
should know nothing of interviews with the risen 
Jesus — except the notice in Matthew of his meeting 
the women — in Jerusalem. The scene is shifted at 
once to Galilee. But if the opinion now coming to 
prevail among scholars is correct, that the narrative 
portion of our Greek Matthew is borrowed largely 
from Mark, with something in the way of supple- 
ment from other sources, the difficulty is confined 
to this one Evangelist, himself not an Apostle, who 



216 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

presents, especially in this part of his writing, a 
summary, rapid and abbreviated, and whose ac- 
counts in general cover the events of which Galilee 
was the theatre. If it be granted that one tradi- 
tion placed the interviews — at least the first of 
them — in Galilee, and that this tradition is found 
in Mark, the evidence from other sources is ample 
and convincing that it was in Jerusalem that the 
risen Jesus first met the Apostles. The theory of 
Weizsacker, therefore, that in Mark we have the 
earliest tradition, and that our other accounts are 
a growth upon it, is untenable. This evidence we 
have now briefly to notice. It consists mainly of 
the testimony of the Apostle Paul in connection 
with Luke's narrative and the narrative in John's 
Gospel. 

Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians in 
57 or 58. His conversion was in 34 or 35, a little 
more than twenty years before, and his first visit to 
Jerusalem, when he stayed a fortnight with Peter, 
was in 37 or 38. He had had ample means of in- 
tercourse with the other Apostles and many immedi- 
ate disciples of Jesus. In considering what he has 
to say in respect to the fact of the resurrection of 
Jesus, we must remember the stress which he laid 
on this fact as the corner-stone of the Christian's 
creed. He enumerates a succession of interviews of 
the risen Jesus with the Apostles. There is no rea- 
son to suppose that he intended to present an ex- 
haustive list of these interviews with the Apostles, 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 217 

much less with the Disciples generally. The passage 
to be quoted is in 1 Cor. xv. 3-8. 

(3) For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ; and 
that he was buried; (4) and that he hath been raised on the third 
day according to the scriptures ; (5) and that he appeared to Cephas; 
then to the twelve ; (6) then he appeared to above five hundred breth- 
ren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are 
fallen asleep ; (7) then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles; 
(8) and last of all, as unto one born out of due time, he appeared to 
me also. 

That these manifestations of Jesus (with the possi- 
ble exception of the appearance to the five hundred) 
were at Jerusalem, and that this was the understand- 
ing of Paul, is settled by a recurrence to the Third 
Gospel. Its author had consulted " eye-witnesses " 
(i. l),and endeavored "to trace all things accurately 
from the first." Moreover, he stood in close relations 
to the Apostle Paul in the later period of his min- 
istry. The first manifestation of Jesus, in the series 
as given by Paul, was to Peter : " he appeared unto 
Cephas." Now in Luke (xxiv. 34), when Cleopas and 
his fellow-disciple, on Sunday, after meeting Jesus on 
their walk to Emmaus, came back to Jerusalen to tell 
the Eleven, who were gathered together, other Disci- 
ples being with them, what had occurred, they were 
met with the exclamation, "The Lord is risen indeed, 
and hath appeared to Simon." " And as they spoke 
these things, he [Jesus] himself stood in the midst 
of them." There is no effort here to give prominence 
to the appearance to Peter; no details are given. 
The circumstance is introduced in this indirect way. 



218 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

Before, Luke had said (verses 11, 12) that the re- 
port of the women on coming from the sepulchre had 
struck the Apostles as idle talk. Peter, however, 
had gone and looked into the tomb, and had " de- 
parted to his home, wondering at that which had 
come to pass." 

Of this visit of Peter to the sepulchre, and how he 
was accompanied by John, we have a clear and 
graphic account in the Fourth Gospel (John xx. 
1-10). 

(1) Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, 
while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away 
from the tomb. (2) She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon 
Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto 
them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know 
not where they have laid him. (3) Peter therefore went forth, and the 
other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. (4) And they ran 
both together : and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to 
the tomb ; (5) and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths 
lying; yet entered he not in. (6) Simon Peter therefore also cometh, 
following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen 
cloths lying, (7) and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying 
with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. (8) Then 
entered in therefore the other disciple also, which came first to the 
tomb, and he saw and believed. (9) For as yet they knew not the 
scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. (10) So the disciples 
went away again unto their own home. 

Those who believe that we have here, and in the 
passages which follow, what the Apostle John wrote, 
will not doubt that the first manifestations of Jesus, 
whatever idea is entertained of the nature of them, 
were at Jerusalem. In the twenty-first chapter of 
the Fourth Gospel, which is an appendix, but prob- 
ably from the writer of the preceding chapters, we 



CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL HISTORIES. 219 

have a record of the appearance of Jesus to the 
Disciples in Galilee. But even those who question 
the apostolic authorship of this Gospel, and attribute 
it to a Disciple of John, cannot consistently doubt 
that enough of its contents was derived from John 
himself to assure us that Jerusalem was the place 
of the first manifestations of the risen Christ to the 
Apostles. We know that they did not forsake Jeru- 
salem at the crucifixion. All accounts concur in 
regard to the fact that they were there on the third 
day. It is beyond all question that it was on the 
third day that the first appearance of Jesus, take 
what view of it one will, occurred. That the subse- 
quent appearances to which the Apostle Paul refers, 
most or all of them, were likewise at Jerusalem, is 
established by an impartial examination and com- 
parison of all the evidence on the subject. 

Sceptical criticism will have to give up the theory 
of " the growth of a legend " of the resurrection 
from insignificant beginnings. If the Third and the 
Fourth Gospels were not in the way, it would be 
absolutely disproved by the umimpeached testimony 
of the Apostle Paul. The fact is incontrovertible, 
nor is it questioned, that the Apostles believed in the 
reality of the Lord's re-appearance and intercourse 
with them on successive occasions, beginning with 
the memorable " third day," — believed in it with an 
unmovable faith, a faith which derision and obloquy, 
persecution and death, availed not in the least to dis- 
turb. It is not designed here to examine at length 



220 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the " vision theory," which, it is alleged, serves to 
account for the belief of the Apostles that Jesus had 
risen from the tomb, and for their testimony on this 
subject. The purpose here has not been to vindicate 
the character of the proofs furnished by them, but to 
show that they gave this testimony. 1 

1 For a consideration of the " vision hypothesis " and a more 
extended discussion of the various topics falling under the head 
of Christian Evidences, I must refer the reader to my work on 
" The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief " (Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, 1883). 



III. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS ON THE TIME 
OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 

The Jews distinguished between the present Age, 
or Period, and the Age, or Period, to come, — thus 
dividing the world's history into two parts. The 
first section is the pre-Messianic, the second is the 
post-Messianic, era. In the New Testament, " this 
World " and " the World to come " are the designation 
of these respective eras. Sometimes the division line 
was placed by the Jews at the beginning of the Mes- 
sianic time, and sometimes at its close, at the Judg- 
ment. This last view was the more common in the 
later Jewish theology. In the New Testament, the 
coming Era, " the World to come," is introduced by 
the Second Advent of Christ to Judgment. In the 
current Jewish theology there was no room for a 
second Advent. The rejection of Christ, his death 
and his resurrection, are the presupposition of the 
Christian conceptions on this subject. The work of 
the Messiah was left unfinished. The basis of the 
New Testament doctrine is the intimations or more 
explicit words of Christ, before and after his death 
and resurrection. The Second Advent is represented 
as the transition-point, the termination of the present 



222 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

order of things. The Coming of the Lord is con- 
ceived of as a definite event, to occur at a point of 
time in the future. It is called the "Parousia." The 
term Parousia, in connection with this subject and as 
related to Christ, always denotes his Second Advent 
in the character of Judge, and the introduction of 
his kingdom in its full victory and dominion. 

1. There runs through the New Testament the 
expectation that the Parousia, as thus defined, is 
near. It is variously described as a coming " in his 
glory," a coming " in the glory of his Father," a com- 
ing " in his kingdom," a coming " with his angels," 
as the " revelation " or " manifestation " of the Son 
of Man, etc. It is spoken of as the " day " of the Lord 
(Luke xvii. 24), as " that day " (Luke xxi. 24), as 
" the end of the world," or, as Luke xxiv. 3 is ren- 
dered in the margin of the Revised Version, " the 
consummation of the Age," — the existing period and 
present order of things. These descriptive phrases, 
or many of them, are found in the contemporary 
Jewish theology. 

" The day of the Lord " is a conception familiar to 
the Old Testament Prophets. Jehovah would surely 
come to deliver his people from oppression and trou- 
ble. He would come, in his character as sovereign 
of the world, to make his power and mercy known. 
The day of the Lord would bring blessings to Israel, 
and discomfiture and ruin to Israel's enemies. But 
in Israel there would be a sifting, a judgment, a 
parting of the righteous from the unfaithful The 






PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 223 

heathen nations would be overtaken with retribu- 
tion. They would be subjugated, and would serve 
Judah. Then again it was prophesied that they 
would be won over, recovered from idolatry, unite with 
Jehovah's people in his worship. Then would ensue 
an era of universal righteousness and peace. The 
precise complexion of the predictions varied witli the 
state of the times and the situation of the prophet. 
In depicting the sublimity and terror of " the day of 
the Lord," the boldest poetic imagery was employed. 
The earth would be shaken, the heavens would be 
convulsed, the light of the stars and of the sun would 
be blotted out. For example, Isaiah (ch. xiii.) thus 
speaks of the day of the Lord which is to destroy 
Babylon, and in like manner (ch. xxiv.) dwells on 
the destruction that is to overtake Jerusalem. But 
in both passages it is not a single mighty city alone, 
but the world, on which the judgments of the Lord 
are to descend. Joel, one of the last of the Prophets, 
speaks thus (ch. ii.) : " The sun shall be turned into 
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great 
and terrible day of the Lord come." In Jerusalem 
a remnant is to escape. The nations shall be as- 
sembled and judged. " The sun and moon are 
darkened, and the stars withdraAV their shining." 
After that, Judah and Jerusalem are to be filled with 
holiness and prosperity. The references in the 
Prophets to the wonders in nature in connection 
with " the day of the Lord " cannot be regarded as 
being, in the intention of the Prophets, simply the 



224 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

language of poetic description. According as the 
visions of prophecy became more definite, it was 
understood that the great deliverance and judgment 
were to be effected through the agency of the Mes- 
siah. Hope, alternating more or less with fear, 
centred in the expected coining of the Christ. 

In the New Testament, under whatever terms the 
Parousia — the Coming of the ascended Christ — 
is referred to, the implication is that it is near at 
hand. In the first three Gospels it is said that " this 
generation shall not pass away " before it will occur. 
The phrase translated " this generation " denotes in 
the New Testament, like the corresponding English 
phrase, the average length of human life. With the 
Greeks it signified a third of a century. In Mat- 
thew, after the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, 
with its attendant miseries, we read that " immedi- 
ately " after the tribulation of those days will occur 
the Advent of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven 
(Matt. xxiv. 29). Luke speaks of the avenging of 
the elect, when the Son of Man " cometh," as to 
occur " speedily" (Luke xviii. 8, 9). In John's Gos- 
pel we see that the expectation among " the breth- 
ren " was that John would live until the Eeturn of 
Christ (John i. 21-23). In the First Epistle of John 
(ii. 18) it is inferred, from the appearance of Anti- 
christs, that "it is the last hour," — which appears 
from the context to mean the same as " the last 
day " in his Gospel ; that is, the Advent. Paul re- 
peatedly adverts to the Second Coming as near. In 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 225 

the First Epistle to the Thessalonians (iv. 16, 17, and 
the following chapter) he speaks of it in such a way 
that the Thessalonian Christians were thrown into 
a commotion. In his Second Epistle he seeks to 
calm the excitement. They are not to think that 
" the day of the Lord is now present " (ii. 2) ; some- 
thing is to precede it. Yet there is still the intima- 
tion that the Advent is not far off; for the Apostle 
explains that " the mystery of lawlessness doth al- 
ready work ; " the precursor of the Advent is already 
beginning to be manifest. In one of his latest 
Epistles — the Epistles to the Thessalonians are the 
earliest — the Apostle says: " The Lord is at hand" 
(Phil. iv. 5). On this passage Bishop Lightfoot 
remarks : " The nearness of the Lord's advent is 
assigned as a reason for patient forbearance. So 
similarly in St. James v. 8 [" for the coming of the 
Lord is at hand"]. The expression, 6 Kvpios iyyv? 
[" the Lord is at hand "], is the Apostle's watchword. 
In 1 Cor. xvi. 22, an Aramaic equivalent is given, 
Mapav a6d [Mar an atlia ; in the margin of the Re- 
vised Version, " The Lord cometh "] ; whence we may 
infer that it was a familiar form of mutual recog- 
nition and warning in the early Church. Compare 
Barnabas, § 21. . . . See also Luke xxi. 31 ; 1 Peter 
iv. 7." "The end of all things is at hand," is the lan- 
guage of Peter. The same Apostle sees in the occur- 
rences at Pentecost what Joel had foretold was to 
precede " the day of the Lord," " that great and 
notable day " (Acts ii. 20). " Ye see the day draw- 

15 



226 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

ing nigh," writes the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews (x. 25). " For yet a very little while," he 
adds, — quoting Isaiah, as rendered in the Septuagint, 
" He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry." 
Jude reminds his readers, with respect to the revilers 
and scoffers about them, of what the Apostles had 
said, that u in the last time " — that is, in the closing 
days of the ante-Messianic era — "there shall be 
mockers." 1 These quotations suffice to show what 

1 Either the author of 2 Peter made use of Jude, or Jude made 
use of 2 Peter. The priority probably belongs to Jude. The 
Apostolic authorship of 2 Peter is extensively questioned in the 
modern, as it was in the ancient Church. This question need not 
be examined here. When it was written, there were mockers who 
scoffed at the expectation of the Parousia (iii. 3 seq.). " Where," 
they said, "is the promise of his coming ?" what has come of it ? 
The writer answers, first, that "one day is with the Lord as a 
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." That is to 
say, " distinctions of long and short time are nothing in the sight 
of God; delay is a purely human conception." And secondly, 
the writer accounts for the postponing of the Parousia by the 
" long-suffering " of God, who is not willing that any should 
perish. 

The authorship of the Book of Revelation is now, as it was in 
the third and fourth centuries and at the period of the Reforma- 
tion, a controverted question. On many points, how to interpret 
it, is now, as of old, unsettled. On the particular topic before us, 
it cannot be denied that the imminence of the Parousia appears 
to be indicated. The Revelation relates "to things shortly to 
come to pass" (i. 1). " The time" — is it not the time of the 
Parousia ? — "is at hand " (i. 3 ; xxii. 10). Immediately follow- 
ing a reference to " the hour of trial" to come upon "the whole 
world," and just before the reference to the New Jerusalem, are 
the words, "I come quickly." This expression is three times 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 227 

was the expectation, as to the time of the Advent, in 
the minds of the New Testament writers. 

Among the other passages which bear on this sub- 
ject, there are some to the interpretation of which a 
degree of doubt may be attached. The attention of 
the reader is invited to the following citations from 
the First Gospel : — 

Matt. x. 23. Matt. xvi. 27, 28. Matt. xxiv. 13, 14. 

But when they perse- (27) For the Son of man (13) But he that endu- 

cute you in this city, flee shall come in the glory of reth to the end, the same 

into the next: for verily I his Father with his angels ; shall be saved. (14) And 

say unto you, ye shall not and then shall he render this gospel of the kingdom 

have gone through the unto every man according shall be preached in the 

cities of Israel, till the Son to his deeds. (28) Verily whole world for a testimony 

of man be come. I say unto you, There be unto all the nations ; and 

some of them that stand then shall the end come. 

here, which shall in no wise 

taste of death, till they see 

the Son of man coming in 

his kingdom. 

repeated in the last chapter (xxii. 7, 12, 20). In the first of 
these instances, the words, "And behold, I come quickly," stand in 
the closest connection with another reference to " the things that 
must shortly come to pass," — the contents of the revelation made 
by the angel. Among the commentators, two explanations are 
frequent. By one school it is said that God's mode of reckon- 
ing time does not accord with man's ; that is, the interval before 
the Parousia is short to him, but long to us. By the other school, 
among whom Moses Stuart is included, "the things shortly 
to come to pass" embrace most of the events depicted in the 
book, but not the Parousia. The beginning of the fulfilment of 
the prophecies was near. The difficulty with the first view is 
that language is designed to be understood by those to whom it 
is addressed; otherwise it conveys no idea to them. The diffi- 
culty with the second view is that the Parousia, although it was 
only one of the events foretold, was yet the most grand and 
important of them all. 



228 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

The first of the foregoing passages is from the 
instructions of Jesus to the Apostles when lie sent 
them forth on their preliminary mission. Matthew, 
in accordance with his custom of grouping together 
utterances of Jesus on a particular theme, lias appar- 
ently gathered into this discourse of the Master sav- 
ings which formed a part of their final commission. 
But what does the Coming here signify ? It was to 
be, it would appear, a means of deliverance for the 
Apostles from further peril. The Lord would come 
before they should have gone through the Jewish 
cities, and thus no places would be left for them to 
flee to. But the second passage appears to presup- 
pose a longer interval before the coming is to occur. 
Some of the bystanders, but only a fraction of them, 
would live to see it. In the third passage the inter- 
val would seem to be still longer. The Gospel is first 
to be preached everywhere. Meyer and Weiss are 
among the exegetes who consider that in all these 
passages it is requisite to understand a reference to 
the Parousia. They hold that in each case the con- 
text makes this reference clear, and excludes every 
other. All three passages, as these critics judge, 
imply the belief that the Parousia was near, but dis- 
close also the varying expectation as to the length 
of the interval that was to elapse before it should 
occur. But there are scholars whose opinion is en- 
titled to respect, of whom Neander is one, who are 
inclined to give a more figurative interpretation to 
the first of the three passages. They would make it 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 229 

a promise of the increase of the power of Christ 
and of the spread of his kingdom. The destruction 
of Jerusalem was too far in the future to be the 
event referred to in the prediction. So there are 
still left critics who are of opinion that the closing 
verses in both the second and third of the passages 
quoted above may refer to something else than the 
Parousia. The differences of judgment in regard to 
the sense of these particular passages, and of others 
that might be named, do not disturb the general con- 
clusion which has been propounded above, — that the 
New Testament writers look forward to the Parousia 
as an event in the near future. 

How are we to account for this expectation of the 
Apostles and other New Testament writers that the 
Lord would soon appear in visible majesty ? What 
led them to look for the Parousia at so early a day ? 
To answer the question it is requisite to attend to 
the Prophetic Discourse recorded in the twenty-fourth 
of Matthew and in the other Synoptics. In that dis- 
course the Second Advent stands in close connection 
chronologically with the destruction of Jerusalem. 

(1) There is the explanation founded on what is 
called "'the perspective of prophecy." This theory 
is thus described by Bengel : " Prophecy is like the 
picture of some region, which in the foreground sets 
down distinctly roofs and paths and bridges, but 
in the background crowds together valleys and moun- 
tains of wide extent." That this character belongs 



230 XATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

to prophecies in the Old Testament — to those, for 
example, which associate the Messianic era with the 
restoration of Israel from captivity — is true. This 
is owing to the limits of prophetic vision in the an- 
cient inspired seers. Bat in the case of Christ, as 
Neander remarks, we can admit no such mingling 
of two events, no error through which the truth, re- 
vealing itself to his spirit, was confused or clouded. 
This conclusion is based not only on our belief in 
Christ's superiority to the Prophets, but also, as will 
be pointed out later, on exegetical grounds, on his 
actual recorded teaching in reference to the pros- 
pects of his kingdom. We cannot, with Bengel, take 
the " immediately " (verse 29) as an equivalent of 
"next in order." If we could, there would remain 
the other chronological statements, — " this genera- 
tion shall not pass away," etc. ; " there be some 
standing here," etc. 

(2) There are certain critics, sincere believers in 
supernatural Christianity, who do not hesitate to say 
that Jesus actually predicted that the Second Coming 
was to occur within this limit of time. Weiss is one 
of these. He labors to show that such a prediction 
is no ground for the imputation of error to Christ. 
He argues that the postponement of the fulfilment 
of a prophecy is always possible in the divine admin- 
istration ; that there are biblical examples of it. He 
affirms, in short, that all prophecies, especially of 
judgment and punishment, are conditional ; that is, 
that they are made with a tacit proviso. 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 231 

A like opinion is cautiously suggested by Dean 
Plumptre in Ellicott's " New Testament Commen- 
tary for English Readers." In his notes on Matt. x. 
23 and xxiv. 29, Dean Plumptre says : — 

" It will be enough humbly to express my own persona- 
conviction that what seems the boldest solution is also 
the truest and most reverential. The human thoughts 
of the Son of Man may not have travelled in this matter 
to the farthest bounds of the mysterious horizon. . . . 
There is that in God which answers to the modification 
of a purpose in man, and now postpones, now hastens, 
the unfolding of his plan. . . . He [Christ], as truly 
man, and as having, therefore, vouchsafed to accept the 
limitations of knowledge incident to man's nature, speaks 
of the two events as poets and prophets speak of the far- 
off future." 

Dean Plumptre adds that the thoughts of the 
Apostles and their immediate disciples were mainly 
moulded on this prediction ; and in his comment on 
Matt. xxiv. 36, he speaks of " their assumption that 
the Son of Man had definitely fixed the time of his 
appearing," and " their consequent forgetfulness of 
the ' long-suffering ' which might extend a day into 
a thousand years (2 Peter iii. 3, 8)." 

The objection to conceiving of Jesus as subject to 
the limitations of the Old Testament Prophets in fore- 
casting the future, has already been stated. It is 
true that prophecies of judgment are not irrevocable 
Sometimes it is distinctly said that they are con- 
ditional, even when they have been uttered in the 



232 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

most unqualified terms. The Prophet Joel proclaims 
" the day of the Lord " as " nigh at hand," and de- 
scribes it in all its terror. But he goes on to say 
that the threatening may not be fulfilled. Let the 
people forsake their sins. God is gracious. "Who 
knoweth whether he will not turn and repent ? " 
(Joel ii. 1, 13, 14.) But in the case of the predic- 
tion of the Second Advent in the Synoptical Gospels 
the parallel fails, on account of the explicit character 
of the chronological statements which are connected 
with it. At this point Weiss encounters a difficulty 
which his observations do not avail to remove. 

(3) Dean Mansel, in " The Speaker's Commentary," 
has adopted an opinion, that was broached by Luther, 
that the destruction of Jerusalem and the final ad- 
vent to Judgment were by Christ himself mingled 
together from beginning to end of the Prophetic 
Discourse. That is to say, Christ purposely dis- 
cussed both these events in the same breath, using 
language applicable to both alike. As both events, 
the end of the temple and the end of the world, 
were coupled in the question of the Disciples, so 
they were indiscriminately treated in the answer. 
This is certainly an unexampled method of teach- 
ing. The interpretation, when the attempt is made 
to carry it through the Discourse, appears artificial 
and confused. 

(4) Most candid scholars at present prefer the 
hypothesis that the reports of the Lord's Discourse — 
which, it must be remembered, are translations of it 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 233 

into Greek, and in an abridged form — are tinged by 
a subjective anticipation of the Disciples, the result of 
their own thoughts and yearnings with regard to a 
point left indefinite in the Lord's prophetic teaching, 
the design of which was to afford glimpses of grand 
turning-points in the development of his kingdom. 
" If Christ," says Neander, " pointed forward to the 
great effective forces or steps involved in his com- 
ing in the world's history, his victorious self-reve- 
lation, bringing in his kingdom, he meant thereby 
in part his triumph in the fall of the previous sensu- 
ous form of the theocracy, and in the more free and 
mighty spread of this kingdom, to be secured by it, 
and in part his last coming for the consummation of 
his kingdom. He had in view the judgment of the 
degenerate theocracy, and that final judgment, — the 
one being the first more free and mighty development 
of the kingdom of God, the other its final consumma- 
tion ; both being regarded by him as events corres- 
ponding one to the other, — just as in general, in the 
great epochs in the world's history, God reveals him- 
self, sitting in judgment on a creation ripe for its 
downfall, and calling a new creation into being. Of 
this character are the critical and creative epochs of 
the world's history, having relation one to another ; 
while collectively they prefigure that epoch when the 
judgment is completed, and with it the creation of 
the divine kingdom. ... It is easy to understand 
how it might happen that in apprehending and re- 
producing such discourses of Jesus, from the stand- 



234 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

point of the hearers, the successive epochs or stages 
which Christ exhibited in a certain correspondence 
with one another, and which, although he did not des- 
ignate measures of time, he kept more apart, should 
become mingled with one another." Weiss himself 
is compelled to concede such a dislocation in the case 
of Matt. xxiv. 35. We have seen, and it is generally 
conceded, that in the Logia of Matthew there are clear 
examples of a grouping together of utterances of 
Jesus on separate occasions. The Sermon on the 
Mount is an illustration. That the Synoptical reports 
of the Prophetic Discourse should exhibit traces of 
the feeling, spontaneous in its origin, that the Re- 
turn of Christ was to be soon, is a plausible suppo- 
sition. We cannot be sure, from anything recorded 
in the Gospels, that Jesus spoke explicitly of the 
fall of Jerusalem as a " coming " on his part. But 
this term was used by him not always in reference 
to the same event. In the fourteenth chapter of 
John, in the third verse, it is held by both Meyer 
and Weiss that the " Coming " of which Jesus speaks 
is the Parousia, while in the eighteenth verse, the 
" Coming " of which mention is made is held by 
Meyer to refer to the mission of the Comforter, or 
Paraclete, — by Weiss to the Resurrection; and Weiss 
concedes that in the twenty- third verse the " Com- 
ing " refers to the spiritual communion into which 
he was to enter with the Disciples. Here, then, in 
a single chapter of John the " Coming " of Jesus 
is applied to three distinct manifestations of himself. 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 235 

In two places in the Book of Revelation (ii. 5, 15) 
there is mention of a coming of Christ to a specific 
act of judgment, distinguished from the final assize. 

Besides the passages just referred to, there are the 
words addressed by Jesus to the High Priest : — 

Matt. xxvi. 64. Luke xxii. 69. 

Henceforth ye shall see the Son But from henceforth shall the 

of man sitting at the right hand Son of man be seated at the right 

of power, and coming on the clouds hand of the power of God. 
of heaven. 

The "henceforth" in Matthew (air apri), and the 
"from henceforth" in Luke {airb rod vvv), signify 
" from this time onward." They probably both stand 
for the same Aramaic expression, — the expression 
used by Jesus. They refer to the continuous mani- 
festation of the power of Christ in the advance of his 
cause and kingdom. As the passage stands in Mat- 
thew, the " Coming" is part and parcel of this gradual 
manifestation. So Meyer interprets it. Weiss would 
limit the " henceforth " to the first clause ; but there 
is nothing in the construction of the sentence to war- 
rant the restriction. The High Priest was to see — 
was to have unmistakable evidence — that Christ 
was bearing rule, was regnant above. Whether the 
reader agrees with Meyer or with Weiss on the speci- 
fic point where they differ here, it is clear that Christ 
referred to his " Coming," not attaching a uniform 
sense to the term. Hence it was easy for slight 
changes in the collocation of his prophetic words to 
creep into the tradition. The Apostles understood, 



236 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION". 

and they were right in understanding, that Revela- 
tion had reached its fulness, that the next grand 
epoch was to be the Parousia, that they were living, 
in this sense, in the last times. It was natural for 
them to think that the final coming of the Lord 
would not loug be delayed. 

2. That Jesus himself did not assert that his Sec- 
ond Coining would take place in immediate conjunc- 
tion with the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, or 
in the lifetime of the generation then in being, is not 
an a priori conclusion : it may be established on exe- 
geticai grounds. He declared that he did not himself 
know when it would occur. " But of that day and 
hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, 
neither the Son, but the Father only " (Matt. xxiw 36). 
Of course it is possible to interpret " day and hour" 
with strict literalness. Under this interpretation, the 
passage would prove nothing to our purpose. But at 
another time, after the Resurrection, when he was 
asked if he was at once to restore the kingdom to 
Israel, he answered that the question related to a 
secret of the Almighty : " It is not for you to know 
times or seasons, which the Father hath set within 
his own authority " (Acts i. 7). They were to carry 
their testimony, he added, " unto the uttermost part 
of the earth." Here we see the eagerness of the 
Disciples for the consummation of the kingdom, side 
by side with the assurance of Christ that the date 
when their hopes would be realized was an unknown, 
unrevealed fact in the divine administration. It was 






PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 237 

affirmed by him that certain marked events, such 
as would require much time, would precede " the 
end." The Gospel was to be preached to " the whole 
world, for a testimony unto all the nations " (Matt, 
xxiv. 14). But the force of this proof in the case is 
weakened by the conceptions of the world enter- 
tained, at least by the Apostles, and by the language 
used respecting the promulgation of the Gospel. 
Paul writes to the Colossians that the Gospel had 
been " preached in all creation under heaven " (Col. 
i. 23). There are, however, distinct and satisfactory 
proofs, which are afforded by the Evangelists them- 
selves, that Jesus looked forward to the continuance 
of the present order of things after the fall of Jerusa- 
lem and the Jewish State, and to a slow and gradual 
operation of the Gospel in the world of mankind. 
One of these decisive proofs is the parable of the 
vineyard (Matt. xxi. 33-44). There it is said that 
the vineyard will be taken from the husbandmen who 
have charge of it, and will be " let out to other hus- 
bandmen, which shall render unto him [unto the lord 
of the vineyard] the fruits in their seasons." Then 
it is added plainly : " The kingdom of God shall be 
taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof." This can signify 
nothing else than a Gentile ascendency to succeed that 
of the Jews in the matter of religion, and the continu- 
ance of the former. The parables of the leaven and 
of the grain of mustard-seed point without ambiguity 
to the long-continued and progressive influence of the 



238 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

Gospel among mankind. The same impression is 
made by the parable of the sower and by the parable 
of the farmer who plants his seed and leaves it in the 
ground, " to spring up and grow, lie knoweth not 
how, . . . first the blade, then the ear, then the full 
corn in the ear" (Mark iv. 26-29). A like impres- 
sion is made by the simile of the corn of wheat fall- 
ing into the earth, dying, and bearing much fruit, 
which was uttered by Christ when Greeks sought an 
interview with him (John xii. 24). In John's Gos- 
pel much more prominence is given to the spiritual 
Coming of Christ than to the Parousia. But where 
the Parousia is distinctly referred to, — as in vi. 39 
seq., 44, 54, — it is not implied that those who were 
then living would survive to witness it. It is said 
of every one who believes on the Son : " I will raise 
him up at the last day." No mention is made of the 
fall of Jerusalem as a sign and immediate precursor 
of the Advent of Christ to fulfil this promise. Nor 
is there any such mention in the Epistles. 

The ethical teaching of Christ evidently presup- 
poses that the earth is to continue to be the abode 
of his followers. This implication runs through the 
precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. They have 
to do with the social relations of man to man in the 
earthly life. The supposition of a speedy termination 
of the existing order of things is entirely out of keep- 
ing with their character and tone. The reality and 
power of evil in men's hearts is clearly discerned, 
the antagonism which Christianity will infallibly pro- 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 239 

voke is depicted in strong colors, and at the same 
time the way is pointed out in which evil is to be 
overcome in the world, and men are to be moved to 
recognize the Heavenly Father by observing the spirit 
and conduct of his children. 

3. The Apostles in their expectation of the speedy 
advent of the Lord express a personal hope, and 
not an inspired prediction. We have seen that the 
time of the Parousia was not a subject of Revelation. 
This truth they record. There are no precepts which 
are given by them as by divine authority which de- 
pend on this expectation. There is a remarkable 
passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians which 
it is pertinent here to notice (1 Cor. vii. 25 seq.'). 
The Apostle Paul recommends the Corinthians who 
are single not to marry. His reason is "the present 
distress," by which he means, to quote the language 
of Ellicott, " the precursory woes and calamities as- 
sociated with the Lord's coming." For this recom- 
mendation, as he says, he has " no commandment of 
the Lord." Jesus had left no precept to this effect, 
— a remark which shows that in all probability Paul 
had written accounts of the Saviour's teaching. The 
Apostle simply gives his advice. Among the recent 
commentators, the most satisfactory exposition of the 
whole passage is that given by Heinrici, and the 
similar view of Ellicott. Says the latter: "'I give 
my opinion or advice.' . . . See 2 Cor. viii. 10. . . . 
It seems scarcely to amount here to 'judgment,' but, 
in accordance with the tenor of the whole passage, 



240 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

to point to the ' opinion ' which the Apostle had 
formed on the whole difficult subject" — as is indi- 
cated in the next verse, "'I think, therefore/ etc. — 
which now, not so much in his office as Apostle as 
in his general position, ... he states as his counsel 
or advice." He gives it as one who was enabled 
by the mercy of God to be trusty. In the closing 
verse of the chapter, — "I think that I also have the 
spirit," — "there is nothing," to quote Ellicott again, 
" of a rebukeful tone towards any who might doubt 
the Apostle's words ; "... it implies, however. " in 
its very reserve the grave claim to attention which 
the counsel demanded." But it was still counsel, 
and not injunction. There were occasions when 
the Apostle asserted the authority of his office, and 
claimed for his precepts, as inspired, obedience. 
Here no such claim is put forth. There is neither 
a precept transmitted from Christ, nor is there a 
requirement dictated by the Spirit. Where the mo- 
tive is partly, to say the least, the expectation of 
the Parousia, instead of an official command, we have 
an expression of personal judgment, as from a trust- 
worthy and spiritually enlightened man. When Paul 
in another place (1 Thess. iv. 15) professes to speak 
" by the word of the Lord " respecting the Parousia, 
this reference to divine authority cannot fairly be 
taken to cover more than the general truth that 
when the Lord comes, they who have died will share 
in the blessing with those who will then be in the 
land of the living. Although the phraseology indi- 



PREDICTIONS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 241 

cates his feeling that he was to be of the latter class, 
this forms no essential element in the doctrine that 
is expressed. 

The Apostles were authorized and inspired teachers 
of the Gospel. They were appointed and qualified to 
present expositions of Christianity that should be 
normal in the Church. Beyond the external proofs 
of the authority given them, their inspiration is 
evinced alike in the quality of their writings and of 
their spoken utterances ; for it was the men them- 
selves who were inspired. At the same time it is 
quite possible for an incorrect and exaggerated idea 
of their function to be entertained. Divine attributes 
were not imparted to them. They were not omni- 
scient. As to the invisible world, for example, an 
Apostle said, u We " — not you, but we — " see through 
a glass darkly." Glimpses of things lying in the future 
were accorded them. But, like prophecy in general, 
revelations of the future were in their form figurative 
and fragmentary. Hence the difficulty which is found 
by candid and thorough students of the New Testa- 
ment writings in forming a coherent and systematic 
view on matters included under the head of Eschato- 
logy. If these are prolific topics of controversy, it is 
partly from the character of the data from which 
conclusions are to be deduced. It was the office of 
the Apostles to plant the Church and to train the 
Church in its infancy ; but Church history was not 
disclosed to them in advance. It was not given to 

10 






242 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

them, except in a limited measure, to forecast the 
future. There were illuminated points, patches of 
light cast down from above. Beyond these, their 
personal anticipations might stray, for they were 
but men ; but time alone could verify or nullify 
their personal hopes or fears. The Church for sev- 
eral centuries found it hard to believe in a possible 
victory for Christ without his miraculous, visible 
presence ; but as Christianity moved onward in the 
Roman Empire from conquest to conquest, there 
sprang up a new faith and hope. 



IV. 

THE THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

That Matthew Arnold was a master of the literary 
art will not be disputed. Of this fact the attraction 
which he was able to impart to his discussions of re- 
ligious topics is one proof. He deserves credit for a 
sincere desire to rescue the Bible from the neglect 
and even contempt with which it is often treated in 
these days, especially by the uneducated class. There 
is an important basis of truth in the general affirma- 
tion, on which Arnold is never tired of insisting, 
that " the language of the Bible is fluid, passing, and 
literary, not rigid, fixed, and scientific." Poetry is 
not to be interpreted as if it were prose. Fervent 
discourses are not to be expounded as if they were 
exact and methodical treatises. Among Arnold's 
critical observations on the Scriptures not a little is 
said that is highly suggestive, and to a discrimina- 
ting reader helpful. He is not a profound scholar 
in this department, and for this reason not unfre- 
quently just misses the truth. On the other hand, 
he is not a superficial or ill-informed writer, even 
on matters pertaining to New Testament criticism. 
Among the exceptions of a general nature to be 



244 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

taken to his ways of thought, there is to be reck- 
oned his overweening regard for the Zeitgeist, or 
"Time-Spirit," as he well renders the German phrase. 
It misbecomes a student of the past to pay a slavish 
reverence to this impersonal divinity. There are too 
many examples of a wrong path taken by "the Spirit 
of the Age." Too often the "Time-Spirit" has been 
turned into devious ways, and been either lost in error, 
or caught in the snare of a half-truth. Who would 
maintain now that the spirit of the Renaissance, in 
the things of religion, in some of the principal seats 
of that great intellectual movement, was the spirit of 
wisdom ? The " Time-Spirit " was never more self- 
assured, never more full of disdain for all who ques- 
tioned its authority, than in the eighteenth century, 
in the period when a shallow. deistic philosophy was 
prevalent. Yet Arnold in his remarks on Bishop 
Butler, even when he has just conceded that Butler 
routed his adversaries and vanquished the fashiona- 
ble infidelity of that day, still cannot forego the 
use of his slightly monotonous appeals to the "Time- 
Spirit," in answer to some of Butler's postulates. 
In the earlier part of this century the "Time-Spirit" 
in Germany found in the older and now exploded 
naturalistic Rationalism, springing from the Kantian 
school, the acme of possible attainment in the sphere 
of religion. The past warns us to remember still the 
counsel of the Apostle to " hold fast " — not that 
which is new — but " that which is good." 

Arnold wished to find " for the Bible a basis in 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 245 

something which can be verified." The corner-stone 
of his system, if system it is to be called, is a con- 
ception of God which he not only regards as true, 
and evidently so, but even identifies with the biblical 
idea respecting this fundamental point. His theory 
may be termed an unscientific Pantheism ; or per- 
haps, inasmuch as he does not profess to exhaust 
the conception of the Deity by his definition, an 
Agnostic Pantheism. In " Literature and Dogma," 
with much, although it can scarcely be said with 
wearisome, iteration he explains that the equivalent 
of God is " the Power, not ourselves, that makes for 
righteousness." One would suppose that we have 
here a distinct expression of what, not lettered per- 
sons alone, but the world at large as well, mean by 
" cause," and designate by this name. But no ! our 
author warns us that such notions belong to " meta- 
physics," and were quite foreign to the simple Israel- 
ites. Moreover, we ourselves run off into speculation 
the moment we talk of them. There is a Power, a 
Power exerting itself, or being exerted, a Power ex- 
erting itself for a particular end, or producing a 
definite effect ; yet it must not be denominated a 
"cause." Most people, whether simple or not, would 
be moved to ask what more precise description of 
cause and causal agency could be given than is in- 
volved in this favorite phrase of Arnold. In his 
second work, " God and the Bible," he makes an 
elaborate effort to explain his remarkable definition 
of God, and the Israelites' conception of him, and 



246 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

to rule out the idea that under the " Power, not our- 
selves," there is included the notion of a being. In 
this latter work we are told that we must not think 
of "the Power that makes for righteousness" as in- 
hering in a subject, — this is a misconception; it is 
anthropomorphic. Is all that is meant, then, that 
righteousness is observed, or is believed, to be fol- 
lowed by blessedness ? Is there nothing but the 
bare fact of a succession of consequent to antece- 
dent, after the manner of Hume's theory of causa- 
tion ? More than this is intended. There is an 
" operation " which yields this result. Things are 
so constituted that the supposed effect is produced. 
It is a " law of nature " like the law of gravitation. 
It is a " stream of tendency." When we speak, and 
when the Israelites spoke, of the " Power that makes 
for righteousness " as " eternal," all that is really 
meant is that righteousness always was and always 
will be attended with blessing. Arnold does not 
seem to be aware that in trying to fence off the 
conception of being as connected with the " Power, 
not ourselves," he does not succeed in escaping from 
what he styles " metaphysics." There is an " oper- 
ation " left; there is a a perceived energy." The 
doctrine is simply this : that the world — things col- 
lectively taken — is such that a certain result, namely, 
blessedness, is sure to be worked out by the practice 
of righteousness. It falls short of being a dogmatic 
Pantheism by the added statement that we cannot 
" pretend to know the origin and composition of the 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 247 

Power," etc. ; we cannot say that it is a person or 
thing. In one place Arnold professes that he will 
not deny that " the Power "is "a conscious intelli- 
gence." But ordinarily he treats the conception that 
his " Power " is intelligent as pure anthropomor- 
phism. If it be this, why admit it even as a possi- 
bility ? If Arnold had pondered the subject more 
deeply, if he had carefully studied such a work, for 
example, as Lotze's " Mikrokosmus," he might have 
learned that the idea of personality, when connected 
with the conception of God, involves no philosophi- 
cal difficulty. If by anthropomorphism is meant the 
limiting of God, or making him finite, no such conse- 
quence follows from personality. 

It is interesting to inquire what becomes of devo- 
tion, of what men have always meant by prayer and 
communion with God, when God is made to be noth- 
ing more than a law of things, " a stream of tend- 
ency." In a foot-note Arnold gives the following 
answer : "All good and fruitful prayer, however 
men may describe it, is at bottom nothing else than 
an energy of aspiration towards the Eternal, not 
ourselves, that makes for righteousness, — of aspira- 
tion towards it and co-operation with it." The 
Eternal, it must be remembered, which is referred 
to by the use of the pronoun it, signifies no being, — 
this is expressly disclaimed. " It," " the Eternal," 
is the fact that " righteousness was salvation," and 
will " go on being salvation." " It," " the Eternal," 
is the experienced and expected conjunction of these 



248 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

two things. What aspiration towards " it," and co- 
operation with " it " denote, and with what propriety 
either of these or both together can be taken to sig- 
nify prayer, in particular the supplication which has 
always been held to be the prime essential in prayer, 
we are left to conjecture. 

Considering the tendencies « of the time in the di- 
rection of Pantheistic thought, it is not a matter 
for surprise that Arnold should bring forward the 
notion of an impersonal divinity. There is, however, 
some reason for astonishment that he should pre- 
sent his conception as the kernel of the Israelites' 
faith, the living God of whom the Prophets spoke, 
and in praise of whose perfection the Psalms were 
composed. He admits, to be sure, that the Hebrews 
personified, and could not but personify, " the Stream 
of tendency." Surely it is nothing short of an amaz- 
ing error to regard the personal qualities which the 
Hebrews attached to God as an accidental and sep- 
arable element in their faith. Take away the person- 
ality of God, and what basis would have remained 
for that living communion with him, that joy in him, 
which formed, the life and soul of the Hebrew reli- 
gion? Substitute the vague abstractions which make 
up this Pantheistic definition of deity for the desig- 
nations of God in the Prophets and the Psalms, and 
the frigidity and almost ludicrous emptiness that re- 
main, fairly exhibit the Hebrew religion as it would 
have been, if its essential contents had accorded 
with our author's idea of it. Not even an intuition 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 249 

is allowed them of this imaginary divinity, the con- 
nection of righteousness with happiness, but their 
knowledge of " it " is described as empirical ; it is 
something found out by experience. " From all they 
could themselves make out, and from all that their 
fathers had told them," they arrived at the conclu- 
sion that righteousness was the way to happiness. 
The truth is, that in the Hebrew mind righteous- 
ness was infinitely more than a perceived condition 
of being happy. It was a requirement from with- 
out, from the Holy One. Their delight was in him. 
When they failed in righteousness, as fail they did, 
the only hope of happiness was through contrition 
and pardon from God. 

Having subtracted from religion and theology the 
fundamental truth of a personal God, it is interesting 
to inquire what account Arnold gives of the substance 
of Christianity. It would not be candid to deny that 
he presents certain thoughts and suggestions of spir- 
itual value, and certain felicitous phrases respecting 
Christ which easily take lodgment in the memory. 
The sum of his doctrine is contained in his often- 
repeated statement of the "method" and the "secret" 
of Jesus, and the spirit or tone of his teaching. The 
method is that of " inwardness," — " Cleanse the in- 
side of the cup." So far there is nothing novel and 
nothing to be disputed in our author's exposition. 
The secret is self-renouncement, — " He that will 
save his life, shall lose it." The element in which 
the method and spirit are worked is mildness, or 



250 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

what is expressively termed " sweet reasonableness." 
There was, it is well said, a " winning felicity " 
and a " balance," free from all fanaticism and ex- 
travagance. The trouble with this description of 
Christ and his teaching is that it contains a most 
incomplete account of the " secret " of Jesus. All 
that Jesus says of the Father in heaven, of the rela- 
tion of the human soul to him, of the joy of personal 
trust in him, of his unsleeping care of his children, 
is left out. The Divine Father himself is left out. 
Will it be soberly pretended that all this is no es- 
sential part of the doctrine of Jesus ? Will it be 
pretended that in his conception of the inward life 
of the soul, this conscious relation to the Father had 
no vital place ? What did the prayers of Jesus him- 
self signify ? What did he mean when, being alone 
as regards human sympathy, he said that he was not 
alone because the Father was with him ? What did 
he mean when he said at the moment of death, 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit " ? 
If self-renouncement is the whole secret, how does 
the religion of Jesus differ from Buddhism ? We 
are not surprised to hear Arnold say that it does 
not. Buddhism, he tells us, has not only the sense 
for righteousness, it has even the "secret of Jesus." 
But it employs the secret ill, it is added, because 
it lacks the method, " the sweet reasonableness, the 
unerring balance." The central, substantial prin- 
ciple, the " secret," is declared to be in both sys- 
tems the same. The real distinction between them, 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 251 

the radical distinction and source of differences, 
Arnold omits to point out. It lies in the Pantheistic 
root of the Buddhistic ethics, in contrast with the 
doctrine of the living, personal God and Father, 
Avhich is involved in all the teaching of Jesus, and per- 
vades Christianity as a religious and ethical system. 
Seeking to avoid this truth, and to put in its place 
a vague Pantheistic philosophy, Arnold is obliged to 
content himself with a maimed and mutilated repre- 
sentation of the essentials of the doctrine of Jesus. 
He falls into the same sort of error which he charges 
on Buddhism. He omits from the teaching of Christ, 
and his ideal of self-renouncement and the unworldly 
temper, the truth expressed in such sayings as this : 
" Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need 
of all these things." 

That Arnold should discard the New Testament 
miracles altogether, is the necessary consequence of 
his repudiation of Christian theism. If nature and 
the course of nature are not traced back to the will 
of a Creator and Sustainer of all things, there is no 
room left for the supernatural either in the realm of 
matter or in that of spirit. As far as Arnold deigns 
to argue the question, his principal point is that we 
are able to see how the stories of miracles arise and 
grow up. For this reason they lose their hold on 
our faith. It is true that we can see how many mi- 
raculous stories have grown up. The same thing, 
however, is true of an endless amount of non-miracu- 
lous narrative. The Bible miracles, it is asserted. 



252 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

cannot stand as long as they are admitted to form 
a class by themselves. The assumption here is that 
in the Christian religion there is nothing distinctive, 
nothing unique, nothing to awaken or to warrant the 
expectation that a power will be exerted superior to 
nature. Arnold well defines his position on this 
subject when he says that if we had accounts of the 
ministry of Christ which wc knew to have come from 
the immediate Disciples, we should not have in them 
a whit less of the miraculous than the canonical 
Gospels contain. Are we to conclude, then, that it 
was impossible for Jesus, in case he really healed the 
blind and the lame, as the Gospels record, to have 
furnished any credible evidence that he did it, — any 
evidence to be relied on in after times, or affording 
ground for reasonable belief in the facts even to those 
who were with him when they occurred ? What idea 
of Jesus Christ himself is implied in the proposition 
that the family of followers whom he associated with 
himself, whom he personally taught and trained, were 
utterly disqualified from giving substantially trust- 
worthy testimony concerning what with their own 
eyes they saw him do ? 

In his comments on the Gospels, Arnold shows him- 
self quite capable of discerning the weak side of the 
criticisms of Baur and the Tubingen school. He does 
not succeed, however, in avoiding erroneous and mis- 
leading statements on matters of fact, not to speak of 
fallacious theories. An instance of the former is his 
misinterpretation of Papias, the earliest of the author- 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 253 

ities who give an account of the origin of the Gospels 
of Matthew and Mark. He speaks of the preference 
on the part of Papias " for oral relations " in com- 
parison with Scriptures. The truth is, as Bishop 
Lightfoot has conclusively shown, that the work of 
Papias was a commentary on written records, and 
that the oral relations which he valued consisted of 
anecdotes illustrative of his exegesis, his statements 
relative to Matthew and Mark being one example of 
them. The collection of New Testament writings into 
the form of the canon as it has come down to us, was 
gradual. But there can be no doubt that Papias made 
use of authoritative Scriptures of apostolic authorship ; 
nor is there the least reason, from his silence respect- 
ing Luke and John, or from the silence of Eusebius 
in his references to Papias, to infer that these last 
authors were not among them. 

Arnold more than once affirms with emphasis that 
the record of the life and words of Jesus when we 
first get it "has passed through at least half a cen- 
tury, or more, of oral tradition." This statement is 
contrary to the truth. Critics of highest authority, 
non-orthodox as well as orthodox, agree that the Gos- 
pel of Mark was written a number of years before the 
destruction of Jerusalem. The Gospel of Matthew 
in its present form soon followed, and the Gospel of 
Luke soon after the date of Matthew. But there were 
written records prior to the composition of the Synop- 
tics, which were superseded by them. Of this there 
is proof from Luke's own statement, besides other 



254 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

evidence. Moreover, the fact should not be sup- 
pressed that the oral tradition very early, in the 
presence of the Apostles and in their teaching, so 
far acquired a definite form as to insure it against 
perversion. That tradition is embodied in the Synop- 
tical Gospels. 

Arnold makes it clear that the Fourth Gospel is no 
such theological romance as Baur attempted to make 
it out to be. He dismisses with little respect the 
notion that John did not live at Ephesus. But his 
own hypothesis is open to weighty objection. His 
theory is that the materials of the Gospel are largely 
from communications made by the Apostle John him- 
self, and that these were issued, under the auspices of 
the Elders of the Church at Ephesus, by an editor. The 
tradition, says Arnold, " speaks of a revision of what 
the Apostle John produced." This is what the tradi- 
tion does not do. The statement of Arnold is founded 
on what is said in that ancient document, the Mura- 
torian canon; but the Latin word (recognoscentibus) 
which he takes to mean " revise," is properly rendered 
" certify," or " authenticate." The legend has noth- 
ing to say of any "revision" by the fellow-disciples of 
John. A certificate or testimony, such as the Latin 
term above mentioned might denote, is appended to 
the Gospel (John xxi. 24), where it is explicitly as- 
serted that John " wrote " the contents of the book. 
There is then no such tradition respecting a " revi- 
sion" of "notes" of communications made by John, 
as Arnold assumes to exist. The theory is a pure 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 255 

conjecture, without a scintilla of historical evidence 
to support it. 

Looking at the Fourth Gospel "from within," Ar- 
nold has too discerning an eye not to recognize " its 
unity of tone, its flowingness and connectedness." 
Yet he would have us believe that the author pieced 
together his Johannine notes in a very mechanical 
style. He applies his theory to account for the words, 
" Arise, let us go hence," which occur at the end of 
the fourteenth chapter. There was a transition to be 
made to a fresh set of notes. These words were put 
in between the end of one set and the beginning of 
another. But why ? " They were traditional words 
of Jesus, as we see from the ' Rise, let us be going,' 
of St. Matthew ; and the composer of the Fourth Gos- 
pel thought that they would come in serviceably at 
this point." The reader will probably judge that this 
is no explanation at all. An expression, it is implied, 
is picked up and inserted in the midst of utterances 
of Jesus to which it has no conceivable relation. 
And this is done by a writer whose work is char- 
acterized by " flowingness and connectedness " ! If 
the words were actually spoken by Jesus at the 
point in his discourse where they are placed, all is 
clear. Without a supposition of this sort, they are 
meaningless. 

When Arnold speaks of the " flowingness " of the 
Fourth Gospel, he suggests a quality of it which his 
theory of its authorship fails adequately to take ac- 
count of. Included in this " flowingness," at the bot- 



256 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

torn of it, we might add, and pervading the whole 
Gospel, is that element of personal experience on the 
part of the author to which reference has been made 
on a preceding page. If it is the Apostle John him- 
self, pouring out of his own soul the personal affec- 
tion and reverence for Christ, in which the work is 
steeped, then the autobiographic character of the Gos- 
pel is explained. But how shall we account for it 
if the book emanates from a Greek editor, patching 
together scattered notes ? 

The contrast is striking between the light humor 
of Matthew Arnold's prose writings and the gloom of 
his poetry. In the poems, which are so admirable in 
their way, one may not doubt that his inmost feel- 
ing finds expression. There pervades them a tone 
of sadness, — a sadness without remedy and without 
solace. Faith gone, the fountains of joy are dry. 
And yet he sees that the millions — 

"Have such need of joy ! 
And joy whose grounds are true ! 
And joy that should all hearts employ, 
As when the past was new ! " 

The want of the world is — 

" One mighty wave of thought and joy lifting mankind amain." 

But the poet sees no ground of hope. He has 
no counsel to give to mortals, in their unquench- 
able yearning for bliss, but to " moderate desire," 
to be content with what a few days on earth may 
yield. 



THE THEOLOGY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. 257 

" Fools ! that so often here 
Happiness mocked our prayer, 
I think might make us fear 
A like event elsewhere ! 
Make us, not fly to dreams, but moderate desire ! " 

That is to say, putting the poet's idea into plain prose, 
our disappointments here should convince us that the 
deepest hopes of humanity are illusive. A thoughtful 
writer has contrasted this faithless vein with the 
spirit of Browning in his " Cleon," where it is argued 
that because " life 's inadequate to joy," there must 
be a life beyond to meet nature's demand. Cleon, 
heathen though he is, dares imagine some future 
state, — 

" Unlimited in capability 
For joy, as this is in desire for joy, — 
To seek which joy, hunger forces us." 

And this makes him lament that Zeus has made no 
revelation to verify the irrepressible thought. A les- 
son may be read in Tennyson the reverse of the 
despairing inference of Arnold : — 

" My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live for evermore, 
Else earth is darkness at the core, 
And dust and ashes all that is ; 

" This round of green, this orb of flame, 
Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 
In some wild poet, when he works 
Without a conscience or an aim." 

Ill the mournful strain of Arnold's verse it is some- 
thing to find that the sufficiency of the Christian faith, 

17 



258 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

when that faith is possible, to purify the soul and to 
fill it with gladness, is confessed with enthusiasm. Of 
the time when Christianity was young, he sings, — 

" Oh, had I lived in that great day, 
How had its glory new, 
Filled earth and heaven, and caught away 
My ravished spirit too ! " 

The loss of faith is the loss of cheer. This is one 
sign that the health of the soul is gone. If the pessi- 
mistic temper does not ensue, it is owing to an arrest 
of the natural tendency of the unbelieving or agnostic 
state of mind. But desolation of spirit, even if it reach 
the limit of despair, will not of necessity open the 
way to faith. It may not bring with it any lowering 
of self-estimation, much less the humility which de- 
plores the presence and power of evil in the soul, and 
sighs for deliverance. " They that are whole need not 
a physician, but they that are sick." 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COMMENTS ON THE 
GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 

No one approaches the investigation of the Gospel 
histories without prior beliefs, or inclinations to be- 
lieve, of one kind or another, respecting God, and 
the nature and destiny of man. It is impossible 
that one's impressions relative to the trustworthiness 
of the Gospel histories should not vary more or 
less with the ideas and expectations which he brings 
to this field of inquiry. His creed as to matters 
of natural religion, be that creed positive or nega- 
tive or indeterminate, will inevitably and by the 
force of logic have its influence on his estimate 
of those narratives. Professor Huxley is no excep- 
tion to this rule. In his little book on Hume, in 
his " Lay Sermons," in his controversial papers 
against Professor Wace, he has expressed himself 
too clearly to leave us in any doubt in reference 
to his philosophical opinions. He has explained 
how he came to invent the term " Agnostic," which 
describes his position. If the name is new, the main 
thing denoted by it is expressed by the Apostle Paul 
when he says of the world, that it " knew not God ; " 



260 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

although the Agnosticism to which the Apostle re- 
ferred commonly had a stock of beliefs of its own 
in regard to the world unseen, — therein differing 
from the Agnosticism of which Professor Huxley 
has the distinction of being the godfather. 

Professor Huxley thinks that what we call the 
mind is a collection or series of sensations stand- 
ing in certain relations to each other, and that 
this is all we know about it. That there is a think- 
ing agent, such as men generally suppose to exist 
when they use the word J, there is no proof. Their 
conviction is not an intuition ; it is not a rational 
postulate ; it is nought except a bare hypothesis 
which there is no ground for affirming as a fact. 
There is a uniformity of succession in the sensations 
which constitute the soul, as far as we know any- 
thing of it or have any reason to assert anything 
of it ; but there is no freedom of choice, in the 
sense that the circumstances, internal and external, 
being the same, any different determination of the 
will from that which actually takes place, is possi- 
ble. On this view of things, how there can be a ra- 
tional basis for responsibility, or for the obligations 
of morality, is a natural inquiry, but an inquiry with 
which just now we are not concerned. " What we 
call the operations of the mind," says Professor 
Huxley, " are functions of the brain, and the ma- 
terials of consciousness are products of cerebral 
activity." But the brain, like everything else that 
is alive, is developed from protoplasm, the primitive 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 261 

form of living matter. Professor Huxley avows that 
we have no explanation of the way in which life 
may have originated from inorganic matter, but he 
indicates no doubt that it had this origin. The 
reader would naturally say that we have here a 
scheme of bald materialism. But Professor Huxley 
resents this imputation. He insists that we have 
no knowledge of anything but the heap of sensations, 
impressions, feelings, — or by whatever name they 
may be called. There may be a real something 
without, which is the cause of all our impressions. 
In that case, sensations are the symbols of that un- 
known something. This conclusion Professor Hux- 
ley favors, although he is at pains to declare that 
idealism is unassailable by any means of disproof 
within the limits of positive knowledge. There is 
the inconvenience, it may be added, which attaches 
to this last alternative, that it really involves the 
giving up by the idealist of belief in anybody, as 
well as anything, outside of himself. It involves 
the doctrine which metaphysicians style solipsism. 
But the " something " of which the brain is a product 
is unintelligent ; and when the brain dissolves, there 
is nothing to prove that the phenomena of intelli- 
gence continue. There is no proof that the soul, 
that is, the series of sensations, does not come to 
an end. What is the nature and value of the dif- 
ference between the " transfigured realism " of the 
Agnostics and old-fashioned materialism, the reader 
may be left to determine for himself. The existence 



262 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of a personal God is another of the propositions 
which are incapable of being established. "In re- 
spect to the existence and attributes of the soul, 
as of those .of the Deity," says Professor Huxley, 
" logic is powerless and reason silent." As regards 
the attributes of God, — justice, benevolence, and the 
like, — he indicates no dissent from the "searching 
critical negation " of Hume. If there be a God, 
he thinks it demonstrable that God must be " the 
cause of all evil as well as all good," — a conclusion 
which would follow, to be sure, from the tenet that 
man is not a personal agent, freely originating his 
voluntary actions, but is no proper adjunct of the 
opposite doctrine. 

In his book on Hume, Professor Huxley refers to 
the doctrines and arguments of Bishop Butler. " The 
solid sense of Butler," he says, " left the Deism of 
the Freethinkers not a leg to stand upon." But 
Hume, he intimates, has been successful where they 
failed. Hume does not concede what the Deists 
admitted. In the passage which Professor Huxley 
cites from Hume's " Inquiry," there is no denial of a 
supreme governor or of divine providence. Hume's 
position, or the idea which he puts into the mouth 
of the Epicurean, is that although experience shows 
that a virtuous course of life is attended with happi- 
ness, and a vicious course of life with misery, yet 
this experience affords not the least ground for ex- 
pecting consequences of a like kind after life is over. 
" Every argument," says Hume, " deduced from 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 263 

causes to effects, must of necessity be a gross sophism, 
since it is impossible for you to know anything of 
the cause but what you have antecedently not in- 
ferred, but described to the full, in the effect." This 
sweeping statement rests on the baldest empiricism. 
By parity of reasoning, if we cannot go an inch be- 
yond what we have seen, we should have to say of 
a man who in a long course of conduct had acted 
justly, that we cannot infer in him the existence of 
an established disposition to conform to the dictates 
of justice in the future. However, Hume illogically 
admits that an expectation of this character is valid as 
far as " the ordinary course of events is concerned." 
His real ground, although it is not openly stated, is 
that we have no proof of a future state of being ; and 
if he does not reject the belief in a supreme gover- 
nor, and in divine providence as active in the present 
world, his silence on this point springs merely from 
civility or reserve. But it is only necessary to step 
out of the prison of a narrow empricism to find in 
the allotments of justice here, evidence enough to 
show that there is a just God, and thus to warrant 
the presumption, if not to justify the full belief, that 
there is a future life and a completion there of a 
system begun here, but not carried to completion. 
It is true that Butler's arguments in the " Analogy " 
are aimed at Deism, and not at Atheism, or Scepti- 
cism as to the essentials of natural religion. But it 
is also true that his arguments go farther and effect 
more than he directlv intended. This he himself 



264 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

sees and asserts. Whoever will candidly read his 
chapters on Natural Government and Moral Govern- 
ment will find in them evidence which points to the 
conclusion that there is a God, that he is just, and 
that there is a probability of a continuance of the 
system of rewards and punishments in a life beyond 
this. 

Any one who saw the Cologne Cathedral as it was 
fifty years ago, half built and with a crane in the 
unfinished tower, would have had no doubt as to the 
plan of the structure or the design that had existed 
to realize it, sooner or later. What would have been 
said of an onlooker who should have denied that 
there was any evidence of a thought or an intention 
in the contriver of the edifice to do anything more 
than could then and there be seen ? 

It is obvious to discerning students of philosophy 
that the Agnostic theory is destructive of knowledge, 
if knowledge be anything but a consciousness of 
present sensations, including the present sensations 
which fall under the head of memory. All the inves- 
tigations and reasonings of science proceed on the 
foundation of axioms, — call them intuitions, rational 
postulates, or by any other title. But these, according 
to Agnostics, denote simply a certain stage at which 
the process of evolution has arrived. What is to 
hinder them from vanishing, or resolving themselves 
into another set of axioms, with the forward move- 
ment of this unresting process ? What then will 



HUXLEY OX THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 265 

become of the doctrines of Agnosticism itself ? It 
is plain that on this philosophy, all knowledge of 
realities, as distinct from transitory impressions, is 
a house built on the sand. All science is reduced 
to Schein, — mere semblance. 

But it is not designed here to enter into a scrutiny 
of Agnosticism. Nor is it an object to hold up 
Professor Huxley as an adherent of obnoxious ideas 
in matters pertaining to natural theology, — ideas, 
however, it might be said, which have a degree of 
popularity. He has a right to his own opinions 
on these topics, and certainly is not to be denied 
the privilege of publishing them. The point here 
made is, that one who must necessarily have so 
little sympathy with the phenomena of the religious 
life, — by whom so much that, to an earnest theist, 
is the deepest reality, is unavoidably regarded as il- 
lusion, — will inevitably look upon the New Testa- 
ment writings, even upon the historic records form- 
ing a part of them, from a point of view extremely 
prejudicial to any claims they may have to credence. 
An inhabitant of the frozen North who had convinced 
himself, after an examination of the subject deemed 
by himself sufficient, that there are no proofs of the 
existence of any land south of Hudson's Bay, and 
that all pretensions to the contrary are on a level 
with opinions on " lunar politics," could not be ex- 
pected to give a sympathetic consideration to accounts 
of the scenery and life of the tropics. He would 
point an informant, with a smile of incredulity, to 



266 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the stunted vegetation and fields of ice about him. 
They make up his world. How can one give credit 
to the supernatural elements in Christianity, who 
finds no proof of the reality of anything super- 
natural, — to whom God, freedom, and immortality 
are unverifiable creations of fancy ? 

The New Testament from beginning to end has a 
great deal to say on the subject of belief and dis- 
belief. It will not be denied that many of the ut- 
terances of Jesus directly relate to this theme. Nor 
can it fairly be questioned that among them are 
distinct declarations to the effect that belief in God, 
and certain aspirations and tempers of feeling con- 
genial with it, are indispensable conditions of faith 
in himself and in his divine commission to represent 
the Father and to teach with authority. Christ did 
not fail to take account of the fact that many dis- 
believed in him, many of " the wise and understand- 
ing ; " he looked this fact full in the face, but he 
was at no loss to explain the secret of such disbe- 
lief, its real origin and source. This circumstance 
is adapted to excite reflection. It does not excuse 
us, however, from a candid consideration of what- 
ever objections can be alleged against the credibility 
of the Gospel narratives. 

To Professor Huxley the Christ of history is 
shrouded in mist. Vain are his efforts to define to 
himself " the grand figure of Jesus as it lies in the 
primary strata of Christian literature." Shall he think 
of him as kindly and peaceful in his look and man- 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 267 

ner, as a frowning judge, or as a bleeding ascetic, — 
as the Christ of the Second, or of the Fourth Gospel ? 
He cannot tell. To him the elements that are to 
contribute to the image are confused and inconsis- 
tent. This is very remarkable when it is remembered 
that there is no personage in history of whom a more 
vivid and consistent idea is found in the minds of 
millions of human beings of every grade of culture, 
and when it is remembered that this conception is 
drawn from the view of him as he is presented in the 
four Gospels. The Jesus who uttered the Beatitudes, 
took little children in his arms, rebuked the ambition 
and rivalry of his Disciples, denounced the hollowness 
and selfishness of Pharisaic teachers, laid his hands on 
the blind and palsied and healed them, wept with the 
sisters at Bethany, leaned on the breast of John at 
the Supper, turned and looked upon Peter and moved 
him to shed tears of penitence, — of whom is there 
an image so distinct, so harmonious, stamped on the 
minds of so many men and women and children ? The 
portraiture of Jesus in the Gospels, with its unique 
character, its marvellous, yet natural mingling of 
human traits with miraculous powers and supernatu- 
ral authority, is itself a sufficient witness to its own 
faithfulness to the original. Criticism may raise 
difficulties about details in the narratives, but the 
picture that is painted by the Evangelists is too life- 
like for the truth of it to be questioned. It cannot be 
the product of invention. These humble narrators 
could never have produced an ideal portrait so full 



268 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

of naturalness, and yet so exalted in its beauty and 
perfection. 

Professor Huxley, in his controversy witli Professor 
Wace, made the mistake of assuming that what was 
said by Baur, Zeller, Volkmar, and other writers of 
the Tubingen school thirty or forty years ago, corres- 
ponds with the opinions and theories of their succes- 
sors in the line of liberal criticism in Germany. He 
was apparently not aware of the fact that many of 
the fundamental tenets of his authorities have been 
pretty generally abandoned by German scholars on 
all sides. When he dogmatically styles the Fourth 
Gospel " a theosophic romance of the first order," he 
is not aware that this hypothesis of Baur has few 
left, of any party, to do it reverence. What he has 
to say respecting the authorship and date of the 
Gospels has been demonstrated by Professor Wace to 
be entirely discordant with the published opinions of 
critics whom Professor Huxley had himself pronounced 
to be authorities worthy of the highest respect. A 
few words may here be added by way of comment 
on his observations relative to the integrity of the 
Gospels. He asserts that there is no proof that " any 
one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we 
find it in the Authorized Version of the Bible, before 
the second century ; or, in other words, sixty or 
seventy years after the events recorded." From the 
probable insertion of the last twelve verses of Mark 
in a portion of the early manuscripts of that Gospel, 
and of a fraction of the eighth chapter of John in 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 269 

certain manuscripts of the Fourth Gospel, he draws 
the conclusion that there is a general uncertainty as 
to what the Evangelists really wrote. Such state- 
ments and reasonings are loose and misleading. Of 
the strength of the external evidence for the substan- 
tially correct transmission of the Gospels, any one 
may convince himself who will examine Professor 
Norton's work on the Genuineness of the Gospels, — 
the production of a Unitarian scholar who has never 
been charged with a want of critical impartiality. 
Ancient copyists, like modern printers, were liable to 
make mistakes. But the multiplying, at a very early 
day, of copies of the Gospels, which are represented 
in the later manuscripts, together with early transla- 
tions and with numberless quotations in the ancient 
ecclesiastical writers, afford us means of textual 
criticism such as we possess in reference to no other 
writings of antiquity. The state of the facts con- 
cerning the two instances of probable interpolation 
to which Professor Huxley refers, instead of pro- 
moting, helps to disperse, the haze of uncertainty 
which he seeks to cast over the text of the Gospels. 
With regard to the closing verses of Mark, of which 
Jerome says that " nearly all the Greek texts omit 
them," their early insertion in a few manuscripts was 
no doubt owing to the peculiar abruptness with which 
that Gospel closed, and does not in the least imply 
a prevailing disposition to falsify or to deal care- 
lessly with the works which were so precious to the 
early Christians. Professor Huxley quotes a part of 



270 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

the marginal note in the Revised Version, attached 
to the story of the woman taken in adultery. The 
note reads thus : " Most of the ancient authorities 
omit John vii. 53 — viii. 11. Those which contain 
it vary much from each other." Of this interpolation 
Weiss observes : " It is a tradition which corresponds 
perfectly to the tone of the Synoptics. Rightly un- 
derstood, it carries in itself decisive internal marks 
of truth, and no evidence of later invention." It was 
not unlikely a part of the oral tradition, which, being 
with good reason credited, was inserted by some one 
in his copy of John's Gospel. The point to be re- 
marked is that in both the important cases of inter- 
polation, as also in the passage relative to the three 
witnesses (1 John v. 7), — which is omitted in the 
Revised Version, — and so in the numerous, compara- 
tively unimportant, instances of textual variation, we 
are possessed of exceptionally satisfactory means of 
deciding how the original stood. Whoever will ac- 
quaint himself with the character of the evidence for 
the genuineness of the works of classical literature 
which have been handed down to us, and will com- 
pare this evidence with the external proofs of the 
authenticity of the Gospels, will cease to be troubled 
by observations of the character of those quoted above 
from Professor Huxley. 

Professor Wace, in his controversy with Professor 
Huxley, wisely declined to be diverted from the real 
issues involved in their debate by entering into a dis- 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 271 

cussion of the narrative in the Synoptical Gospels of 
the Gadarene demoniac, — as Professor Wace remarks, 
" one of the most difficult and mysterious narratives 
in the New Testament." In undertaking to impeach 
the credibility of the Evangelists, Professor Huxley 
found it expedient to select a narrative which has 
been acknowledged to involve certain peculiar diffi- 
culties. Yet if the intention was to invalidate the 
proof of miracles, the choice was not altogether 
fortunate. That Jesus somehow effected the cure of 
persons called " demoniacs," is a part of the evan- 
gelical history which is denied by few, if any, of the 
sceptical critics of the present day. It is admitted to 
be a portion of that history which must be accepted 
as authentic. Critics of this class may charge ex- 
aggeration upon the narratives, but even they do not 
question that beneath them is a groundwork of his- 
torical fact. These cures are in some cases connected 
inseparably with things said by Jesus which are un- 
questionably authentic. Moreover, be the source of 
the disorders referred to what it may, there is no rea- 
sonable escape from the conviction that the maladies 
of those who were cured by the word of Jesus were 
more intense and aggravated than any of the dis- 
orders which may have been temporarily relieved by 
the juggling methods of exorcism in vogue among the 
Jews. Had it been otherwise, there would have been 
no occasion for trumping up the charge against him 
that he was in league witli Beelzebub, and cast out 
demons by his aid. Jesus met this accusation by the 



272 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

ad hominem argument, " By whom do your sons cast 
them out ? " To this he added that a kingdom 
divided against itself could not stand : the Devil 
would not be fighting against himself : a strong man 
must be bound before his house can be entered and 
he be spoiled of his goods. Whatever opinion may 
be entertained concerning the nature of the disorders 
in question, that miraculous power was exerted by 
Jesus in curing them, and that his adversaries could 
not resort for an explanation of this power to any 
precedents within their own knowledge, are facts 
which it is unreasonable to dispute. 

None of the narratives of this class is better attested 
and commended to credence by internal marks of 
verity than the account of the Gadarene demoniac. It 
is true that in Matthew two demoniacs are spoken of. 
If this be anything more than a seeming discrepancy, 
its presence does not affect in the least the credibility 
of the principal circumstances of an occurrence which 
all the Synoptics record. Since Dr. Thomson identi- 
fied the place with Kersa, or Gersa, on the eastern 
shore of the lake, opposite Capernaum, no difficulties 
of consequence remain in respect to the locality which 
is assigned to the event by the several Evangelists. 
A madman, who had taken for his abode one of the 
holes in the rocky hillside which were used for tombs 
by the Jews, came out to meet Jesus. In the graphic 
narrative of Mark, and in that of Luke also, his wild 
and savage ways are vividly described, — his violence 
as shown in his breaking the fetters that bound him, 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 273 

and in tearing off his clothes, in his outcries by night 
and by day, and his gashing his flesh with sharp 
stones. He was restored to sanity by Jesus, and was 
found, after an interval, sitting at his feet, " clothed 
and in his right mind." It has been sometimes con- 
jectured that the plunging of the herd of swine down 
the precipice into the lake might have been an addi- 
tion to the authentic facts, and not a part of the 
account as originally given by the Apostles. But 
even this incident is corroborated by the context. It 
was the report from those who had kept the swine 
that brought to the spot the people from the neighbor- 
ing city, who were struck with fear, and by whom 
Jesus was besought to return to, the western side of 
the lake. Moreover, the answer which is recorded 
by the Evangelists to the question of Jesus, " What 
is thy name ? " and the other signs of a distracted con- 
sciousness which were manifest in the maniac's words 
and acts, are of a character to confirm the story as 
told by Mark and Luke, — a story which, there is no 
reason to doubt, emanated from eye-witnesses. As to 
the other inquiries which arise in connection with 
this class of narratives, it is not proposed here to 
enter into an investigation of the subject of demonia- 
cal possession. Let it suffice to indicate briefly three 
main views of the matter, each of which has secured 
for itself more or less approval among considerate 
Christian scholars. 

The first is the theory of " accommodation," — that 
Jesus entered into the " fixed idea " of the sufferers 

18 



274 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

that they were possessed by evil spirits, as a means 
of delivering them from an ingrained but delusive 
impression, and of thus effecting their cure. There 
are serious difficulties in the way of this theory. 
One of them is the circumstance that Christ when 
he was alone with his Disciples said nothing to cor- 
rect the popular belief in which they shared, and 
bade them when they went out on their mission " to 
cast out devils " as well as to heal the sick. Never- 
theless, the theory of accommodation has been adopted 
by scholars conspicuous for ability and candor. One 
of them was Nathaniel Lardner, a Unitarian in his 
theology, and eminent for his fairness as well as 
thoroughness in historical inquiries. Another is 
Meyer, a German scholar of marked independence 
and uprightness, who has had no superior in re- 
cent times as a commentator on the New Testament 
writings. 1 The accusation of dishonesty brought 
against adherents of this opinion is harsh and 
unfounded. 

The second view on the subject is that presented 

1 Meyer's principal arguments are the absence of references 
to demoniacal possession in the Old Testament ; the fact that 
so-called demoniacs were cured by exorcists ; that no clear cases 
of possession occur at present ; that there is no notice of demonia- 
cal possession in John's Gospel, although the overcoming of Satan 
is there made a part of the Messiah's work, and Satan is said to 
enter into a man's mind and take control there (John ii. 27) ; 
and that the so-called demoniacs are not, as would be expected, of 
a diabolic temper and filled with malignant feelings towards Christ. 
(See Weiss's Meyer, on Matt. iv. 24.) 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 275 

by Neander and others, who hold to a certain meas- 
ure of accommodation on the part of Jesus to de- 
lusive impressions of the victims of these disorders. 
Their idea is that the agency of a personal Evil 
Spirit, the ruling spirit in a kingdom of evil, was 
truly and really concerned in the fearful maladies 
to which Jesus mercifully administered relief. The 
description which Neander gives in his " Life of 
Jesus " — and the same may be said of observations 
of Trench in his work on the Miracles — of the confu- 
sion, distraction of spirit, and mental distress, which 
prevailed in so extraordinary a degree, at the critical 
epoch when the Saviour appeared, is highly instruc- 
tive and suggestive. It is the idea of Neander that 
Jesus had no wish to cast discredit, but was con- 
cerned to avoid casting discredit, on the essential 
truth underlying the notions, superstitious though 
they might be in form, of the wretched sufferers 
whom he was bent on healing morally as well as 
physically. It is generally implied in the narratives 
that there was moral evil at the root of the disordered 
condition of the demoniacs. This, however, can 
scarcely be presupposed in the case of the epileptic 
who had been a sufferer in this way " from a child " 
(Mark ix. 22). 

The third opinion is that which accepts as liter- 
ally true, or as substantially so, the ideas of the suf- 
ferers themselves respecting the inhabitation of evil 
spirits. This opinion Professor Huxley professes 
himself unable absolutely to disprove on grounds 



276 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

lying within the compass of the sciences in which lie 
is an adept. This he says even in reference to all 
the particulars of the Gadarene narratives. He can- 
not deny ex cathedra their possible truth. He brings 
forward, to be sure, the common objection that de- 
moniacal possession does not occur at present. To 
this an opponent would answer that in this declar- 
ation he asserts more than he knows ; moreover, that 
the laws which determine the movements of super- 
human evil beings are beyond our ken ; that their 
influence and operations on the earth and among 
men may not be the same at one epoch as at another ; 
and that if it be true, to recur to the figure employed 
by Christ himself, that the house was entered and 
" the strong man" bound, the agency of evil spirits in 
certain forms of mischievous activity may be crippled 
and checked. If it is once admitted that there exist 
superhuman beings of evil disposition and intent, — 
and the proposition is one which he must be a bold man 
who ventures to deny, — the narratives in the Gospels, 
when literally taken, offer no offence to reason. The 
possibility of one mind falling into a strange thraldom 
under another, is believed to be illustrated in the facts 
of hypnotism. 

But Professor Huxley avers that he should not 
believe in this inhabitation of evil spirits, even if it 
were demonstrated that Jesus Christ had taught it 
as a fact. He would not claim, however, that an 
argument of any cogency, in the case supposed, is 
to be drawn from his personal incredulity. These 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 277 

are questions which are not to be determined by 
a count of heads. Other men, not inferior to him- 
self in acuteness and grasp of intellect, and in readi- 
ness to follow in their judgments the dictates of 
reason, are of an opposite mind. Here is Richard 
Rothe, a philosopher of the largest powers, unfettered 
by any doctrinal bias, revered by all schools of thought 
in Germany for his golden candor, who argues at 
length in his Dogmatik for the literal acceptance of 
what Professor Huxley styles " the Gadarene story." 
He maintains the utter unreasonableness of the theory 
that beyond the limit of the human beings now living 
on the earth, whose moral tempers are depraved, there 
are no intelligent creatures who delight even more in 
evil ; and he asserts the equal unreasonableness of 
maintaining that the range of their motions and ac- 
tivities is so restricted by police regulations that they 
are cut off from doing mischief here among men. It 
is fair to remind those who are disposed to attach to 
the personal incredulity of Professor Huxley an un- 
due weight, that his professions of unbelief are car- 
ried much farther than they might feel inclined to 
follow him. He does not believe — it is not said that 
he denies, but he does not believe — that there is a 
Supreme Being who is personal or self-conscious ; he 
does not believe that consciousness exists apart from 
the brain, and that mental action of man survives 
death. The personality of God, and the personality 
of man, and the continuance of man's conscious life 
after he ceases to breathe, are propositions not 



278 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

included in the list of his affirmative beliefs. It is too 
much to expect that his aversion to admitting that 
superhuman spiritual beings exist and may produce 
effects such as are ascribed to them in the New Testa- 
ment, according to the more common interpretation 
of its narratives, should be capable of being overcome 
by a declaration of the fact, were it known to come 
from Christ himself. But to those who do not share 
in this antecedent incredulity, who hold that we must 
depend for our knowledge of the subject almost ex- 
clusively upon Revelation, and who believe, on what 
they deem good and sufficient grounds, that Jesus 
taught only what he knew, — to those, his authority will 
be decisive. They may not be clear, they may differ 
among themselves as to what he professed to teach in 
relation to this subject; but to that teaching, when its 
purport and limit are settled, they will consider them- 
selves rationally obliged to give credence. They will 
be apt to find themselves, not weakened, but confirmed 
in their confidence in him as a religious teacher, by 
the improbability that he who could thus bring back 
sanity, and with it moral health and peace, to a furi- 
ous maniac, could have cherished a mistaken idea 
respecting the character of the disorder. 

Professor Huxley endeavors to show by an example 
that the* proof of mediaeval miracles, such of them 
as no Protestant believes in, is just as strong as 
the proof of the miracles recorded in the Gospels. 
He even thinks that the evidence is stronger in the 
former case than in the latter. This ground of 



HUXLEY OX THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 279 

debate has been well trodden. Long ago Douglas, 
in his " Criterion," set forth clearly and forcibly the 
difference between the common run of ecclesiastical 
miracles, as to the evidence that exists in support of 
them, and the miracles of Christianity. Mozley, in 
his Bampton Lectures, has presented a learned and 
cogent argument on the same topic. Even Cardinal 
Newman, in writings at a former day, has impres- 
sively exhibited the superior force of the proofs for 
the miracles of Scripture, in comparison with those 
adduced for miracles elsewhere related. The ques- 
tion is one which calls for the exercise of historical 
tact and judgment, and no degree of skill or amount 
of acquirements in natural science avail to supply 
this indispensable faculty. Niebuhr, with a mind 
naturally sceptical, saw at once a deep peculiarity in 
the Gospel narratives, which distinguishes them from 
the mass of legendary tales from which we instinc- 
tively turn away with incredulity. The " fundamen- 
tal fact of miracles" in the life of Jesus was, in 
Niebuhr's estimation, lifted above all doubt. The 
" whole history of Jesus " he perceived to be true and 
real, " even if were not related with literal exactness 
in a single point." The parallelism between the 
character of the testimony for the Gospel miracles, 
and the proof of the legends of the saints, is super- 
ficial. The moment one strikes below the surface, 
essential differences appear, and structures raised by 
such authors as Renan on the basis of an opposite 
theory are seen to be built on no solid foundation. 



280 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

To give more effect to his confident affirmations on 
this subject, Professor Huxley takes up the story 
related by Eginhard, or Einhard, the biographer of 
Charlemagne, of the translation from Italy of the 
relics of the martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus. Egin- 
hard in his later days had contracted with a Roman 
deacon, Deusdona, to deliver to him the relics of these 
two saints, to be deposited in his own church at Oden- 
wald, whither Eginhard had retired to spend the re- 
mainder of his life. Professor Huxley draws out the 
details of the transaction, but sums up the facts as 
follows : — 

" Deusdona turns out to be a swindler, and has no 
relics. Thereupon Egiuhard's agent, after due fasting 
and prayer, breaks open the tombs and helps himself. 

" Eginhard discovers, by the self-betrayal of his brother 
abbot, Hilcloin, that portions of his relics have been 
stolen and conveyed to the latter. With much ado he 
succeeds in getting them back. 

" Hildoin's agent, Hunus, in delivering these stolen 
goods to him, at first declared they were the relics of St. 
Tiburtius, which Hildoin desired him to obtain ; but 
afterward invented a story of their being the product of 
a theft, which the providential drowsiness of his com- 
panions enabled him to perpetrate from the relics which 
Hildoin well knew were the property of his friend. 

" Lunison, on the contrary, swears that all this story is 
false, and that he himself was bribed by Hunus to allow 
him to steal what he pleased from the property confided 
to his own and his brother's care by their guest Ratleig. 
And the honest notary himself seems to have no hesita- 



HUXLEY ON THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 281 

tion about lying and stealing to any extent, where the 
acquisition of relics is the object in view. 

" For a parallel to these transactions one must read 
a police report of the doings of a ' long firm ' or of a set 
of horse-coupers ; yet Eginhard seems to be aware of 
nothing, but that he has been rather badly used by his 
friend Hildoin and the ' nequissimus nebul'o ' Hunus. . . . 

"To a man like Eginhard, the mere satisfaction of 
the religious sentiment was obviously a powerful attrac- 
tion. But, more than this, the possession of such a 
treasure was an immense practical advantage. If the 
saints were duly flattered and worshipped, there was no 
telling what benefits might result from their interposition 
on your behalf. For physical evils, access to the shrine 
was like the grant of the use of a universal pill and 
ointment manufactory ; and pilgrimages thereto might 
suffice to cleanse the performers from any amount of 
sin." [Eginhard, in a letter, complained of the inatten- 
tion which the martyrs had paid to his vows. His faith 
in their intercessions had been " utterly disappointed."] 

" We may admit, then, without impeachment of Egin- 
hard's sincerity or of his honor under all ordinary cir- 
cumstances, that when piety, self-interest, the glory of 
the Church in general, and that of the church at Seligen- 
stadt in particular, all pulled one way, even the worka- 
day principles of morality were disregarded, and a for- 
tiori, anything like proper investigation of the reality 
of the alleged miracles was thrown to the winds. 

" And if this was the condition of mind of such a man as 
Eginhard, what is it not legitimate to suppose may have 
been that of Deacon Deusdona, Lunison, Hunus, and 
company, thieves and cheats by their own confession ; 
or of the probably hysterical nun ; or of the professional 



282 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

beggars, for whose incapacity to walk and straighten 
themselves there is no guarantee but their own? Who is 
to make sure that the exorcist of the demon Wiggo was 
not just such another priest as Hunus ; and is it not at 
least possible, when Eginhard's servants dreamed night 
after night in such a curiously coincident fashion that 
a careful inquirer might have fouud they were very 
anxious to please their master ? " 

On Professor Huxley's own showing, what is the 
mental and moral state of the agents in this trans- 
action, of Eginhard as well as of the rest ? What is 
the atmosphere in which they live ? Will it be seri- 
ously maintained that as concerns the qualifications 
for giving truthful testimony, they are on a level with 
the Apostles and their companions ? It is assumed 
here, despite assertions made to the contrary, that 
the contents of the Gospels present with substan- 
tial correctness the testimony of the immediate Dis- 
ciples of Jesus. Had they no advantage in respect 
to that sobriety of mind which enables one to per- 
ceive the truth and to state what he knows, above 
the persons who figure in Eginhard's account ? To 
objections quite similar to those which Professor Hux- 
ley brings forward, Bishop Butler, in his grave, truth- 
loving manner, thus replies : — 

" Over against all these objections is to be set the im- 
portance of Christianity, as what must have engaged the 
attention of its first converts, so as to have rendered 
them less liable to be deceived from carelessness than 
they would in common matters ; and likewise the strong 



HUXLEY OX THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 283 

obligations to veracity which their religion laid them un- 
der; so that the first and most obvious presumption is that 
they could not be deceived themselves, nor would deceive 
others. And this presumption, in this degree, is peculiar 
to the testimony we have been considering." 

In the case of the Apostles was there no ethical 
training, no restraint upon tendencies to indulge in 
fancies at variance with reality, in a daily associa- 
tion with Jesus Christ ? It is possible here to set 
down only in the briefest manner some of the differ- 
ences in the situation of the first Disciples as com- 
pared with the framers of mediaeval legends. The 
miracles of Jesus had an essential part in originating 
the Disciples' faith in him. They served to neutralize 
the disappointment which his refusal to take the role 
of a political Messiah, and his sufferings and death, 
occasioned. The alleged ecclesiastical miracles were 
in accord with a faith already established and assured 
beyond the intrusion of doubt. This is a difference of 
vital moment. The testimony of the Apostles was 
given in the face of incredulous Sadducees. The 
witnesses were ridiculed and maltreated on account 
of it. They were to be, and they were, brought before 
magistrates to answer to the charge of heresy. There 
was no room and there was no time, as any one who 
looks at the circumstances of the first Disciples ought 
to see, for devout dreams and the invention of roman- 
ces in conformity with an ideal of their own devising. 
If the Disciples were " characterized by a prolific " 
fancy and an unchastened credulity such as were 



284 NATURE AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

active in giving birth to the legends of the saints, why 
were no miracles ascribed to John the Baptist ? Why 
did they not ascribe miracles to Jesus during the first 
thirty years of his life ? These are among the ques- 
tions which admit of but one fair answer. They had 
the conscientious feeling which belongs to witnesses 
who have a sacred obligation to fulfil. 

There are two pre-requisites for a just appreciation 
of the Gospel histories. The one is something like 
an adequate consciousness of those profound needs of 
the soul to which the salvation of Christ ministers. 
" Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." The other is something like 
an adequate perception of the " overwhelming great- 
ness " of Christ. 



INDEX. 



Abbot, Ezra, 187. 

Abbott, Edwin A., on the Synoptical 
Gospels, 175. 

Abraham, 14; his place in history, 28. 

Acts, the Book of, by a companion 
of Paul, 179. 

Agnosticism, self-destructive, 135 ; 
origin of the term, 259 ; its rela- 
tion to materialism, 260; destruc- 
tive of science, 264. 

Alogi, their view of John's Gospel, 
188. 

Amos, the Prophet, 27. 

Andrew, the Apostle^ 109. 

Antioch, the church of, 110, 111. 

Apostles, their sense of the need and 
value of testimony, 35 seq. ; doc- 
trine of Atonement developed by 
them, 85; their growth in knowl- 
edge, 84, 86 ; their inspiration, 241 ; 
their character as witnesses, 283. 

Aratus, 95. 

Argyll, the Duke of, 135. 

Aristotle, 100, 128. 

Arnold, Matthew, xii; on Basilides, 
188 ; on the style of the Scriptures, 
243; on the ''Time-Spirit," 244; 
his conception of God, 245 seq. ; 
on prayer, 247; on the Hebrew 
religion, 248 ; on the teaching 
of Jesus, 249 ; on Buddhism and 
Christianity, 250; on New Testa- 
ment miracles, 251 seq. ; on Baur 
and the Tubingen school, 252; on 



Papias, 253; on the date and char- 
acter of the Gospels, 253; on the 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel, 
254 seq. ; sadness of his poems, 
256. 

Atonement, references of Christ to 
it, 85 ; a doctrine developed by the 
Apostles, 85. 

Augustine, 102. 



Bacon, Francis, 134. 

Bancroft, George, 21. 

Barnabas, 114. 

Basilides, 187. 

Baur, F. C, his view of John's Gos- 
pel, 184; his theories obsolescent, 
viii, ix. 

Bengel, on the perspective of pro- 
phecy, 229. 

Bible, increasing interest in its study, 
v; its relation to the kingdom of 
God, vi; progress in the knowl- 
edge of it, vii ; the Protestant view 
of it, 1 ; variety of its contents, 3 ; 
on the date and authorship of its 
books, 4; bond of unity in it, 5; 
compared with secular writings, 
7; Coleridge on its spirit, 8; dif- 
ferences of character in its books, 

8 ; difficulties in interpreting it, 

9 ; Roman Catholic objection to 
its use, 9; was it intended for a 
manual, 10; its relation to the reli- 



286 



JNDEX. 



gion at the basis of it, 10; what led 
to the composition of its books, 12 
seq. ; its relation to the kingdom 
of God, 15, 21 ; Matthew Arnold on 
its style, 243. 

Bleek, Friedrich, 212; on the Synop- 
tics, 174. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 43. 

Bradford, William, 22. 

Browning, Robert, 257. 

Bushnell, Horace, on the miracles of 
Jesus, 38, 

Butler, Bishop: Matthew Arnold on, 
244; Huxley on, 262; on the Apos- 
tles as witnesses, 282. 



Cesarea Philippi, conversation at, 

182. 
Caius, 190. 
Carlyle, Thomas, on the Lord's 

Prayer, 165. 
Carpenter, W. B., on evolution, 133. 
Cerinthus, his relation to the Apostle 

John, 188. 
Chillingworth, William, 1, 2, 9. 
Cleanthes, 95. 
Cleopas, 217. 

Coleridge, Hartley, on prayer, 169. 
Coleridge, S. T., on the Bible, 8, 154. 
Columbus, Christopher, 140'. 
Council, or Apostolic conference, at 

Jerusalem, 111 seq. 
Cyrus, 61. 



Daniel the prophet, 69, 180. 

Dante, 50. 

Darwin, Charles, on variability, 133 ; 
on design in Nature, 135. 

David the king, 59. 

Deism, in the eighteenth century, xi. 

Demoniacal possession, 27ir seq. ; the 
Gadarene demoniac, 272; explained 
by "accommodation," 273, by par- 
tial accommodation, 274 ; literal 
view of, 275. 



Didache, the, 188. 

Dillmann, 30. 

Dionysius, of Alexandria, 190. 

Divorce, Mosaic law on, 79; the 

teaching of Christ respecting, 80. 
Douglas on ecclesiastical miracles, 

279. 



Edwards, Jonathan, viii, 14. 

Eginhard, 280. 

Ellicott, 212; on 1 Cor. vii. 25 seq., 
239. 

"Elsmere, Robert," x, 38. 

Emerson, R. W., xii. 

Epictetus, 7, 99. 

Epiphanius, on the Alogi, 189. 

Erskine, Thomas, 165. 

Ethics, progressive character of, 73 
seq. ; growth of the spirit of love 
in, 75 seq. : imperfect moral ideas 
in, 78. 

Euripides, 95. 

Eusebius, 178. 

Evil, Scriptural doctrine of its rela- 
tion to Divine agency, 56 seq. 

EAvald, on the style of John's Gospel, 
193, 206. 

Ezekiel the Prophet, 69. 



Faith, its sources within, 128 seq ; 
all knowledge grounded on, 139; 
creates nothing, 140 ; adds nothing 
to truth, 141 ; the one essential in 
religion, 142; character of the evi- 
dence for, 143 seq. ; energy of will 
required in, 145 seq. ; different 
grades of, 149; sources of its 
weakness, 150; weakened by sin, 
151 seq., 157 ; hindered by self- 
reproach, 159; how promoted, 161 
seq. : not by the inquisitive fac- 
ulty, 161, but by moral thought- 
fulness, 163, by the experience of 
trouble, 164, by obedience, 166, 
by contemplating Christ, 166, by 



INDEX. 



287 



prayer, 167 seq. ; the conditions of 
Christian. 266. 

Faraday, Michael, 162. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 14. 

Future life, the Old Testament re- 
specting it, 66 seq. 



Gamaliel, his spirit, 95. 

Genesis, its opening chapters, 30 seq. 

Gibbon, Edward, 145. 

God, evidences of his being, 129 
seq. ; from the rationality of na- 
ture, 131, from the argument of 
design, 132 seq. ; evidence of his 
moral attributes, 136 seq. 

Godet. 205. 

Gospel, the Fourth, its date, 34: its 
authorship, 183 seq. ; Baur's view- 
as to its date, 184 ; witness of 
Irenaeus to, 185; known to Poly- 
carp, 183 ; one of the memoirs of 
Justin, 186 ; new proofs of its 
genuineness, 187; its rejection by 
the ALogi, 178 : acknowledged by 
the orthodox and the Gnostics, 
190; on the day of the Last Sup- 
per, 191; its relation to the Syn- 
optics, 192 ; its linguistic character, 
193; its relation to Alexandrian 
philosophy, 194; its liberal tone 
as to the Gentiles, 195 ; subjective 
element in it, 196 ; not written by 
a disciple of John, 196; Matthew 
Arnold on its authorship, 254 seq., 
on its style, 255 : Baur's theory 
of its character, 268. 

Gospels, discrepancies in them, 42 
seq. ; Matthew Arnold on their 
origin, 253 ; integrity of them, 
269. 

Gospels, Synoptic, their relation to 
one another. 173 seq. ; their date, 
180; their relation to the Galilean 
ministry of Christ. 183. 

Gray. Asa. on variability, 133. 

Green, T. H., x. 



Harxack, A., on the Tubingen 
school, ix ; on the Alogi, 189. 

Heberthe Kenite, 75. 

Hebrews, their historic function, 16; 
Matthew Arnold on their religion, 
218. 

Hebrews, Epistle to the, 52; its de- 
sign, 122; its authorship, 122. 

Hea:esippus, on the Apostle James, 
118. 

Heine, xii. 

Heinrici, 239. 

Hilgenfeld, 186. 

Hippolytus, 187 ; on the Alogi, 189. 

Holtzmann, x ; 185, 205. 

Homer, 50. 

Hume, David, 145, 246 ; on the sup- 
position of a future life, 262. 

Hutchinson, Thomas, 22. 

Huxley, T. H., ix ; on the object 
of science, 131; on the misery of 
mankind, 152 ; on the nature of 
the soul, 260 ; on. the existence 
of the Deity, 262 ; on Bishop But- 
ler's arguments, 262 ; his scepticism 
in regard to the Gospels, 265; on 
the New Testament portraiture of 
Jesus, 266; on the Fourth Gospel, 
268; ou the integrity of the Gos- 
pels, 268 ; on demoniacal posses- 
sion, 271 seq. ; on the possibility 
of demoniacal possession, 275; on 
mediaeval and Gospel miracles^ 
278 seq. 



Inspiration, as concerned in the 

Gospels, 41 seq. 
Irenseus. on John's Gospel, 185. 
Isaiah, 8, 14. 



J a el, 75. 

James, the Apostle, at the Council 
at Jerusalem, 114; his relations to 
Paul, 118 ; his Epistle, 119 ; his 
death, 121. 



288 



INDEX. 



Jephthah, 53. 

Jeremiah, 17. 

Jerome, 98, 269. 

Jesus, the founder of a kingdom, 17 ; 
recent lives of, 23; contemporary 
evidence respecting him, 33; his 
miracles, 37 ; his growth in knowl- 
edge, 81 seq. ; his teaching on the 
Atonement, 85 ; undermined the 
ceremonial law, 89 seq. ; exer- 
cised faith, 167 ; when known as 
Messiah by the Disciples, 182; 
the accounts of his baptism, 198; 
the inscription on his cross, 200; 
his preliminary mission of the 
Twelve, 201; the Sermon on the 
Mount, 201 ; his healing of the 
centurion's son, 208 seq. ; the ac- 
counts of his resurrection, 213 ; 
Matthew Arnold on the "secret" 
of, 250 ; on the conditions of faith, 
266; vivid portraiture of him in 
the Gospels, 269. 

Jethro, 53. 

Job, Book of, 63; on death and the 
future state, 68. 

John the Apostle, 8, 34; his spirit- 
ual progress, 86 ; in Asia Minor, 
124, 185. 

John the Baptist, 11, 17; his doubt 
respecting the Christ, 182. 

Jonah, 53. 

Jonah, Book of, 59. 

Judas of Galilee, 97. 

Justification, the Apostle Paul's doc- 
trine of, 105. 

Justin Martyr, his witness to John's 
Gospel, 186. 



Kant, Emmanuel, xi, 68; on the 
being of God, 138, 

Keim, T., 185^199. 

Kepler, 162. 

Kingdom of God, its nature and 
reality, 15 seq. ; office of Jesus in 
relation to it, 17 ; how it is to 



"come," 18; theories concerning 
it, 19 ; its relation to human so- 
ciety, 19 ; its relation to the 
Scriptures, 21 ; obscurity of its 
beginnings, 24 seq. 
Koran, character of it, 5. 



Lakdnek, Nathaniel, on demoni- 
acal possession, 274. 

Laud, William, 1. 

Leibnitz, 102. 

Lightfoot, J. B., 113; on the login 
of Matthew, 177 ; on the Greek of 
the Fourth Gospel, 194: on the 
expectation of the Parousia, 225 ; 
on Papias, 253. 

Lotze, R. H., 134. 

Luke, 35, 36. 

Luke, his Gospel, its beginning, 12; 
its relation to Matthew, 179; writ- 
ten by the author of the Acts, 179. 

Luther, Martin, 113; on faith, 142; 
his early conception of God, 159. 



Mansel, H. L., xii; on Christ's pro- 
phetic discourse, 232. 

Marcion, 7; his Gospel, 180. 

Marcus Aurelius, 7, 99. 

Mark, 35 ; his separation from Paul, 
120. 

Mark, the Gospel of, its relative 
age, 175. 

Martineau, James, 136. 

Mather, Cotton, 22. 

Matthew, the Gospel of, testimony 
of Papias concerning it, 176 seq. ,• 
its dependence on Mark, 178. 

Maurice, F. D., on miracles, 39. 

Maxwell, Clerk, on the conservation 
of energy, 132. 

Menander, 95. 

Messiah, progress of prophecy re- 
specting the, 71 seq. 

Mever, 205, 220, 228, 234, 235, 274. 

Milton, John, xi, 50, 95. 



INDEX. 



289 



Miracles, design of the Christian, 
38 seq. ; objections to their credi- 
bility, 39 : Matthew Arnold on the, 
251 ; mediaeval, 278 seq. 

Mohammed, 5. 

Mohammedanism, how related to the 
Koran, 5. 

Monotheism, Hebrew, 52 seq. 

Montaigne, on faith, 145. 

Moses, his work and influence, 25 seq. 

Mozley, J. B., on the grounds of 
faith, 144, 146; on ecclesiastical 
miracles, 279. 

Naaman, 53. 

Nazarite rule, 118. 

Neander, on Socrates, 130; on John's 
Gospel, 197, 210, 212; on Christ's 
prophetic teaching, 233; on de- 
moniacal possession, 275. 

Nero, 98, 121. 

Newman, John Henry, on the es- 
trangement of mankind from God, 
154; on ecclesiastical miracles, 279. 

New Testament, progress of doctrine 
in, 80. See " Bible." 

Newton, Isaac, 162. 

Niebuhr, on the Gospel history, 279. 

Norton, Andrews, 186; on the Gos- 
pels, 269. 

Old Testament, its early part, 25, 
30; the prophetical writings, 26: 
its relation to the N. T. revelation. 
51 seq. See " Revelation." 

Palfret, J. G., 21. 

Pantheism, its influence, xi; in the 

writings of Matthew Arnold, 245 

seq. 
Papias, on the authorship of Mark 

and of Matthew, 176, 252; on the 

login of Matthew, 177. 
Parousia, in the Jewish theology, 

221, its meaning in the N. T.. 



221; how described in the N. T., 
222; how described in the 0. T., 
222; spoken of in the N. T. as 
near, 224 seq.; how to explain this 
expectation, 229: by the "perspec- 
tive of prophecy," 229, by the 
limits of Christ's knowledge, 230, 
by the purposed mingling of two 
events (Mansel, Luther), 232, by 
a subjective anticipation of the 
Apostles, 232; not predicted as 
near by Jesus, 236 seq. ; the 
Apostles' expectation of the, 239. 

Pascal, Blaise, his prayer, 164. 

Paul the Apostle, 8, 14, 36; his 
agency in setting free the Church, 
87; sources of his knowledge of 
Christ, 93 ; origin of his liberality, 
94 seq,; his culture, 95 seq. ; his 
intolerance before his conversion, 
97; his coincidences with Stoic 
teaching, 97 seq.; his conversion, 
100; relation of his experience to 
his theology, 104 seq.; his visit to 
Peter, 110; at the conference in 
Jerusalem, 111 seq. ; his rebuke of 
Peter, 117; his last visit to Jeru- 
salem, 118; his imprisonments and 
death, 121 ; on the rejection of the 
Gospel by the Jews, 125; on faith, 
141 ; his expectation of the Par- 
ousia, 239. 

Pentateuch, debates about its author- 
ship, 25. 

Pessimism, an effect of the loss of 
faith, 258. 

Peter the Apostle, 36; and Corne- 
lius, 110; at the council at Jerusa- 
lem, 114; rebuked by Paul, 117; 
his confession of faith, 168, 182. 

PfTeiderer, O., 205. 

Philip the Apostle, 109. 

Philo, 194. 

Pilate, 65. 

Plato, 7. 

Plumptre, -E. H., on Christ's pro- 
phetic discourse, 232. 



19 



290 



INDEX. 



Polycarp, acquainted with John's 

Gospel, 185. 
Prophets, O. T., character of their 

teaching, 26 seq. ; presuppose the 

work of Moses, 28. 



Renan, 50, 191. 

Resurrection, references to it in the 
O. T., 69. 

Resurrection of Christ, the several 
accounts of it, 213 seq. ; testimony 
of Paul concerning it, 224 seq. 

Reuss, 25. 

Revelation, in what sense gradual, 
47 seq.; nevertheless supernatu- 
ral, 48; illustrations of its gradual- 
ness, 50: law and gospel, 51; the 
conception of God, 52; distinction 
of matter and spirit, 55; Provi- 
dence of God, 56; the mercy of 
God, 59; rewards and penalties, 
61; on death and the future life, 
65 seq. ; on the idea of sacrifice, 
70 seq.; in the conception of the 
Messiah, 71; in ethical doctrine, 
72 seq. ; in the ideals of ethical 
worth, 74 seq. ; as to the spirit of 
love and forgiveness, 74 seq. ; as 
to the treatment of moral evils, 
78 seq. ; in the New Testament 
period, 80 seq. ; though the Holy 
Spirit, 84; significance of the 
term, 127. 

Rome, the Church of, its view of the 
Bible, 2. 

Rothe, Richard, on demoniacal pos- 
session, 277. 



Sacrifices, their significance, 70; 

progress of doctrine concerning, 

70. 
Salmon, G., 175. 
Samuel the Prophet, 66. 
Schenkel, 191. 
Schiller,' 141. 



Schleiermacher, F., on the Gospel of 
Matthew, 177. 

Schultz, Hermann, 26. 

Schiirer, E., 185, 186 ; on the date of 
the Last Supper, 191. 

Seneca, in relation to Paul, 98. 

Sermon on the Mount, the, in Mat- 
thew and in Luke, 201 seq. ; sources 
of Luke's variations in the, 206; 
presupposes the permanence of so- 
ciety on earth, 238. 

Shakspeare, 50. 

Sheol, how conceived of in the O. T., 
67. 

Sin, its power and prevalence, 153 
seq. ; darkens the mind, 157; the 
source of self-seeking, 157. 

Socrates, the character of his influ- 
ence, 130; on his own death, 147. 

Solomon, 53. 

Spencer, Herbert, his philosophy, xii. 

Spinoza, xi, xiii. 

Stanhope, Earl, 43. 

Stephen, the protomartyr, 14, 102. 

Stoicism, acquaintance of Paul with, 
98. 

Strauss, D. F., x., 199. 

Stuart, Moses, 127. 

Sully, James, on evolution, 132. 

Supper, the Last, on what da} r , 210 
seq. 



Tatian, his Diatessaron, 188. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 168, 170, 257. 
Theism, Christian, comprehensive, xi. 
Theodotus, accepted John's Gospel, 

189. 
Theudas, 97. 

Thomas the Apostle, 144. 
Thomson, W. M., 272. 
Tradition, limits of its value, 33. 
Trench, 275. 



Vedas, their character, 5. 
Vol k mar, 268. 



INDEX. 



291 



Wace, Henry, 268, 271. 

Wallace, A. K., on natural selection, 
134. 

Wellhausen, on the rise of mono- 
theism in Israel, 54. 

Weiss, 178, 205, 210, 212, 228, 232, 
234, 235 ; on the conversion of 
Paul, 103 ; on the origin of the 
Logos idea in John, 194; on the sub- 
jective element in John's Gospel, 
196; on John vii. 53-viii. 11, 270. 

Weisse, 191. 

Weizsacker, 185; on the Sermon on 



the Mount, 205; on the accounts 
of the Resurrection, 216. 

Wellington, Duke of, 43. 

Westcott, B. F., on the Gospel of 
Matthew, 177; on the day of the 
Last Supper, 212. 

Whewell, William, on design in Na- 
ture, 134. 

Winthrop, John, 22. 

Woolsey, Theodore D., 60. 



Zeller, E., 268. 



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